Saved From the Scrap Heap
by Trace Reading
Summary: The obligatory collection of drabbles, one-shots, orphans and ideas that weren't going anywhere. Rated M because, well, there is a strong possibility of weird stuff going up here. Multi-chapter stories will be marked appropriately. Now in misc. crossovers because there isn't a general fiction category.
1. Chapter 1

Untitled #1

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage, patron of the Sarutobi clan, sat with his favorite pipe in his favorite chair, the office in the Tower abandoned at this time of night, but even though he was enjoying the quiet of his private study, he still had one more report to read. It lay in his hand, a single page that would very soon join the many others just like it.

The paper he held concerned one Naruto Uzumaki, jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox, and subject of a permanent surveillance/protection detail, which he had been assigned since the day he could walk. Sarutobi had picked only the very best and most trustworthy of ninja to perform the duty, a task which was rotated through a group of eight shinobi on a monthly basis, two watchers sharing the assignment per month. The only time he was without watchers was when he left the village, but then again he had never done so before and wouldn't be likely to for a good long time yet.

Sometimes the reports were rather light on the information, other times the daily missives covered several pages. They were always structured the same, though. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off, one handling the daytime observations, the other taking over and keeping vigil over Naruto at night. Needless to say it wasn't the most exciting job, but Hiruzen needed to keep a close eye on the boy due to his status. There were those in the village that wanted him gone. Even worse, there were those that wanted to sharpen him into a sword to use against Konoha's enemies.

Neither thing could be allowed, naturally. It was important that Naruto develop as normally as possible so that his loyalty to the village was assured by virtue of it being something that the last Uzumaki wanted, not as something that was coerced from him by threats or promises of reward. The former would just lead him to abandon Konoha at his earliest convenience, and the latter would spoil him beyond usefulness, especially if the expectations started to outstrip the offerings. Unfortunately for Sarutobi, the citizenry of Konoha was making life rather difficult for the young jinchuuriki, and each new report of some action taken against Naruto, or more importantly _not_ taken, weighed heavily on Hiruzen's soul. If it continued he thought he might order Naruto's exile, send him somewhere distant where the Kyuubi was just a myth, where nobody knew of his burden and would treat him like an ordinary child…the Jounin Council would never allow it, though, and placing his successor's son in harm's way like that could not be countenanced. So the suffering would have to continue, much as he wished it would end.

Breaking the genjutsu seal on the document, Sarutobi skimmed over the usual repeat of Naruto's daily routine, looking for something, anything out of the ordinary, good or bad. He noticed the little notes in the margins written by the observers questioning the boy's mental and emotional state, having come to expect them, but unless there were clear signs that Naruto was becoming unstable he would not, _could not_, order action taken, no matter what little quirks he might be displaying. One little tidbit interested him more than the typical drudgery present in the report:

_4:42 P.M.: Whiskers deviated from typical path around perimeter of southern merchant quarter and passed by canal 42 (AKA Water Street). Whiskers then noticed Pyroduck sitting on the boat launch near Long Road. Their interaction was brief but there was a definite exchange between them. No words were spoken; however, a communication of sorts did occur. Whiskers sat with Pyroduck until approximately 5:30, after which both went their separate ways for their typical evening meals._

_Recommendation: move both into joint housing. Leaving either of them alone at this stage would be highly detrimental. Pyroduck's daytime watcher shares opinion._

He'd already read a similar version of the incident in the other daily report he'd gotten; Sasuke's watchers were still new to their job and were a bit more verbose, but the message was the same. Neither group thought that the boys should be left alone if it could be helped, and though the counselor offered a favorable prognosis regarding Sasuke's mental state (and to a lesser extent, Naruto's), the general consensus between the two surveillance teams was that both posed a flight risk.

And yet Hiruzen's hands were tied. Even as Hokage there was only so much he could get away with before people started raising eyebrows, asking questions, and doubting his ability to lead them. He held power at the suffrage of the Daimyo and the Jounin Council, the fifteen elite soldiers who had lived through war and hardship to earn their place at the top of the pecking order. It would only take ten of them agreeing with each other to see Sarutobi deposed and someone younger instated in his place, though he hoped to carry the hat to his grave, which he felt was looming ever closer.

His autonomy as the supreme dictator of the city-state had always been an illusion. True, he had a measure of freedom in how he handled the affairs of military and state, but unlike ninja villages like Iwa or Suna, Konoha was authoritarian in name only. It was lucky for him, then, that the Council had good heads on their shoulders. More than once some lesser ninja had tried to buy the office of Hokage only to be thrown in a cell—if they were fortunate, they simply disappeared entirely. More often than not, though, the offender was given an official reprimand and a mark on their record, and then released back into service after a short stay in the 'drunk tank'; Konoha's ninja corps still hadn't fully recovered from the Kyuubi's attack and the recent Massacre had decimated the ranks even further.

He'd told those damned fools to be a little more patient; there was no need to set Itachi on the entire clan when he could have simply eliminated the Uchiha's ruling body. The young ANBU captain had sat in on the secret meetings, and thus _knew_ who the main conspirators were. No, it was a power play, just like Hizashi had been five years before. Only this time the cost was higher than just one man.

Hiruzen sighed as he finished reading the report. He'd made so many mistakes since that night, so many concessions, overlooked and ignored so much… Perhaps his physician was right. It could be, indeed, that it was time to retire and let someone else take the reins. He had groundwork to place first, however, things yet to do.

If he had turned the emissaries away for the sake of one life, one child's happiness, would it have made a difference? Maybe the Raikage would accept the dismissal…or they would be at war, and at a huge disadvantage. He could have called out the Uchiha leadership, delivered an ultimatum. Perhaps they would have capitulated, but they could just as easily have plunged Konoha into civil war. ROOT was a persistent thorn in his side, yet he couldn't spare the manpower to clear them out, thus leaving Danzo to think he was getting away with all his little projects and black missions…

The biggest mistake, of course, had been Naruto. More than once Sarutobi wished he could go back, stop the self of ten years ago from making that announcement, kept him from revealing Naruto's status to the village. In retrospect the only people that should have known the infant's status were himself, the Daimyo and the Council, and nobody else. Perhaps Naruto as well, of course, once he was old enough, say eight or so.

It was too late for hindsight, though, so the only thing he could do was go forward, try to make it so that his errors in judgment would not have dangerous and far-reaching consequences for Konoha, or indeed the Land of Fire in its entirety.

His mind set, Sarutobi took the report to file it with the others in a very well-protected vault, sliding it into a folder marked with the month, which he then placed in a drawer marked with the current year. One day, maybe, his son or grandson would open the vault and see what it contained, and maybe they'd choose to show it to Naruto, should he still be alive then. Would they praise him, he wondered, or would they revile his name forever afterward? For his part, Sarutobi prayed that he could order a halt to the surveillance in the near future, though he knew it was not to be. Even should Naruto graduate the Academy tomorrow and earn placement on a genin team, the reports would never end. The only breaks would come when Naruto left the village; the file was only to close with Naruto's death. His watchers, attached as they might be to him, knew that if he were to go running off on his own short of official business, personal leave or expatriation, they were to subjugate him immediately, and if it were not possible to subdue him, termination was authorized—as an extreme last resort, but authorized all the same.

It was Sarutobi's sincere hope that it would never come to that. It was Hiruzen's fervent prayer that Naruto would grow into the defender that Konoha needed. He would do everything in his power to make sure that boy had a reason to stay.

_A/N: of course Sarutobi had Naruto under surveillance. Or he would, in my interpretation of things. As fond as Hiruzen might be of him, the fact remains that like any of his ninja, Naruto is an exploitable asset, one to be kept at all costs. Even though it would pain him to do so, he would rather have Uzumaki assassinated than lose him to the wilderness, or worse, another village. Whether Tsunade would keep up the surveillance or have it called off is another matter entirely; what is for certain, though, is that she is far too attached to be able to order Naruto's death, save sending him out on a mission, which is a risk he himself is willing to take._


	2. The Wending Ways

It was all gone. There wasn't a single stone left atop another, not a single branch left unbroken…not a single life spared. The pursuit had been merciless, the hunt relentless—and they were still coming. First the civilians and cadets had fallen. Then the more experienced genin and chuunin. The jounin and ANBU had been the last to fall, the ones to hold out the longest. Now there was but one left; even Naruto had been overwhelmed, despite his rapport with Kurama, despite having used every trick and technique at his disposal, despite being the best ninja since the first. Now there was but one, and she was waiting to be found, even as she worked a forbidden jutsu that could tip the scales, change history forever. If it wiped out this hell, erased the vicious jackals that had dogged them to the bitter end, then it would be worth it. All she had to do was wait for them to find her—and find her they would—and then slay her with something sufficiently high-powered. Oh, they'd have to work for it, of course, she wasn't going to just lay down and die without a fight, but they would ultimately overwhelm her, as they had overwhelmed everyone else. And then the hunters, the hyenas snapping at her heels, would all die, they would never exist to begin with, and she'd have won. A pyrrhic victory, perhaps, but any success you can claim is one worth noting.

With one last hand sign the jutsu was prepared, requiring now only a massive influx of foreign chakra to trigger it; she'd perish in the process, naturally, explode with all the force of a nuclear bomb (as rare as those weapons were), but with her sacrifice everything would change. She could only hope that the changes would be for the better, else this event would be repeated, and then there would be no one left to stand against the darkness.

Before too long they were on her position and though she gave a good accounting of herself, taking out dozens, hundreds of assailants with the best she had to offer it wasn't to last. They always had strength of numbers, an indomitable wave of bodies to throw at their victims and soak up even the most devastating of attacks, and as the injuries to her body began to accumulate and slow her down they grew more aggressive. She began to worry that a commander wouldn't show, wouldn't come to gloat over her loss before finishing her off in a flash of phoenix fire…the concern didn't bear out, as just before a spear would have lanced through her heart she was snatched up, suspended above the teeming throng by lashes of evil energy, binding her to an ethereal cross.

She didn't pay any attention to the words, of course, having heard them before when the bastards caught and killed her family, her friends, but instead smiled at what was about to occur. For an instant there was silence, and relief, and then searing heat greater than any lightning bolt could ever produce struck her body, reducing it to vapor even as the chakra powering it struck the core of her prepared technique. For the briefest moment she knew calm, knew serenity as she had no more body to feel agony with, and just before the darkness swallowed her, she saw the surprise on the bastard's face as he was swatted like a fly in the hand of God.

As a temporary sun filled the sky with light and blackness closed in around her, she had time for one last thought, one last prayer to the gods to watch over her loved ones in the afterlife she could no longer join. The moment had been chosen, and now she had to rely on the person she'd selected to carry her legacy to stop all this before it began. If she could, that is. The time for thinking was over, and she knew no more.

… … …

Ten year old Ino Yamanaka woke with a start, clutching at her head in pain. She could feel them all crying out, feel the sudden and abrupt pain of death being visited on dozens of people, without mercy, without remorse. Her hoarse screaming brought her father running and as his mind touched hers he understood in an instant what was happening. He left her side then, leaving his wife Koume to look after the shrieking cadet, running out into the street to call anyone and everyone, hurrying toward the southeast where the cries were already raising to the heavens and the sound of men dying was all-consuming.

Ino was at a very vulnerable stage in her life, having just begun her training in the mind arts, and thus she was particularly open to the thoughts and emotions of others. Koume could feel the terror and anguish radiating from the Uchiha clan grounds as if it were a fire; she could only guess what the effect on her daughter's mind was like. The only one that could relate was Haruki, and he'd been rendered mute and child-like by his experiences on that night ten years ago. Koume worried that her beloved and only child would suffer the same fate—then, just as quickly as the screaming began, it stopped, leaving just the distant wheezing of emergency whistles and the clamor of ninja leaping across rooftops in a hurry to try and stop whatever was happening at the Uchiha compound.

Inside her head, Ino was reeling from the psychic backlash of feeling so many lives being exterminated so quickly; her novice skill at the Yamanaka secret arts meant she had no defense against the cataclysmic cacophony of thoughts being broadcast as loudly as any bullhorn, and even though the Uchiha lived a fair distance away from the Yamanaka, such was the intensity of their emotion that it felt like a physical pressure on her mind…and it was getting weaker. She knew why, and as each voice fell silent, Ino cried louder in response, trying to keep the noise inside her head, the comforting chaos of sound to push away the morbid certainty that everyone who wore the fan emblem was dying.

As another voice was cut off from the living (a girl her own age, she could tell—not even a ninja trainee, just a normal child) and Ino prepared to scream again she was struck with molten fire inside her soul, feeling as though she'd stepped straight into the center of a kiln and then told them to stoke the flames even hotter. All of a sudden the terrible noise inside her head was gone, replaced with just a single voice, speaking to her softly, encouraging her, reassuring her. It had to be her mother, as the voice had the same sound as her beloved kaa-san's speech, only different cadence, and then as the memories began spilling forth Ino knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could never be the same again.

When the flood of memories stopped and the voice faded out, Ino clutched to her mother's chest and began wailing openly again, for all the things that had been lost, all the things that would never be again. She wept for the slain Uchiha, and the murdered Senju, for that silly oaf Naruto and his sweet baby girl, for everyone she had never met but remembered all the same. The tears flowed unabated until sunrise, and then, on shaky legs she rose, throwing on a coat and a pair of sandals before starting on her way.

Koume didn't try to stop her, but followed Ino out the door, strapping on a weapons pouch just in case because who knew what sort of monster might still be lurking around; she followed Ino until she stopped at the gates to the eerily silent Uchiha grounds, staring in wonder and shock at how empty it was. The bodies had already been moved, naturally, all save that of Sasuke kneeling in front of his house, refusing to budge in the hopes that it was all a dream, all just a nightmare that he was going to wake up from and his mother would be there with a cup of coffee and a few soothing words to ease his fears.

Ino stepped up to the boy, ignoring the ANBU that tried to stop her until the Hokage raised his hand and bid them relent. She kneeled with him and tucked his head against her chest, sharing in his grief and at that the dam broke, plaintive cries lifting to the morning sun, while Ino looked at the leader of her village and uttered the words she knew she needed to say. It would be interrupting everyone's pitying gazes, but it was for the best that she speak now rather than let them dig the well too deep.

"Hokage-sama, I have used the Wending Ways Technique. Please…please take Sasuke-kun to Uzumaki. Do not let them be alone; he'll be able to help. I swear on my life." At her pronouncement Sarutobi and Koume both gasped in audible shock—as if the day couldn't get any worse than it already was. The Hokage because of the authority present in the girl's voice, Koume because the Wending Ways was a forbidden technique that no child would know, even the daughter of the clan head. A few gestures from the Hokage had the ANBU present obeying her orders, and the last Uchiha was bundled off to be taken first to a certain blond boy, and then to the hospital where he could begin his recovery.

Sarutobi watched them go before turning his gaze on the soiled girl still kneeling on Fugaku's doorstep where she had let Sasuke dirty her clothes with his anguish.

"How much time from now, Yamanaka-san, did you use the technique?"

"F-fourteen years, Hokage-sama," Ino replied wearily. "She didn't have any other options left, sir; she was being hunted like a fox…" She caught herself grimacing at the analogy, and then continued anyway. "In the end even though she'd killed nearly three hundred of the enemy in a single battle they overpowered her, and the Wending Ways was the only resort. It took out the entirety of the army that had been sent after her. She was the last…the last person from Konoha to die. They'd already consumed Iwa and Kumo. I have so much to tell you before I forget it, before I join her in oblivion…"

"Why would you suffer the same fate as she?" Sarutobi asked. He knew some of the details of the Wending Ways technique, though that was only from hearsay, and could tell nothing concrete about the supposed trans-temporal memory projection jutsu.

"Because, Hokage-sama," Koume filled in where Ino faltered, "the Wending Ways can only be used at the moment of death… The two sets of memories can't overlap. The user sacrifices herself—and yes, it can only be used by women—along the entire time stream to send a message back, bestow a lifetime of experience on her younger self to be written down in what little time she has before she dies. The past and future are not," she said with a crack in her tone, "to be tampered with without consequence." The Wending Ways had only been used three times before. The first time led to the end of the feud between three families and the beginning of a friendship that had lasted for hundreds of years. The second time had brought the Hyuuga out of the Hidden Stone, out of slavery and into prosperity. And the last usage of the Wending Ways had brought the four families to the Senju and Uchiha, when they were laying the foundation of Konoha.

"Then we must act quickly, to preserve this information as best we can. You will not be forgotten, young one; we will erect a monument to your sacrifice and you will be buried with full jounin honors as befitting one who falls in the service of Konoha. Come; your story awaits us."

… … …

Naruto didn't know why he was saddened by this event as much as he was, but he couldn't stave off the feelings all the same. He and the Yamanaka girl had never talked all that much, really, and though she'd never yelled at him or hit him like some of the girls in his class he knew she was bothered by him sometimes. The last month had been a whirlwind blur, starting with the Uchiha Massacre, and then the last member of the clan being sent to live with _him_ of all people (making him wonder if there were a few screws loose in the Hokage's head); still, he managed, and little by little was helping the abysmally quiet boy to cope, and come to terms with having had everything taken away from him. The weekly hospital visits were rather boring for Naruto, but he was Sasuke's support now, and though he didn't sit in on the counseling sessions, he could see they were helping, a little bit, anyway.

There had been a big fuss two weeks ago, when some men in white masks tried to get him to follow them, but Naruto, being Naruto, knew they weren't real ANBU (after all, Dog was the Commander and never went on the escort details himself, Cat was a woman and Bear never referred to him as Uzumaki-san), and led them on a merry chase around the village where they demonstrated further still that they weren't real ANBU because they were trying to catch him with lethal techniques and getting in each others' way. While he was running from them (with Sasuke in tow because he needed to learn how to get around the village) a few buildings blew up and there were a lot of ninja running around that day, including the real Dog who caught all of the fakes using an electric net…and now here he was at a funeral, in brand new funeral wear, the Uzumaki clan seal sewn onto his left breast, standing between an iron-jawed Sasuke and a weepy girl that he recognized as Sakura from the Academy, listening as the Old Man delivered a eulogy for Ino as if she were some war hero.

It sucked that she was dead. She'd always laughed at his jokes when he made them, and always had a flower for that Neji kid that was always scowling at the younger cadets except when Ino was around…now he remembered. She and Sakura were friends. They'd always hung out together, and even included that shy Hinata girl sometimes…now she was gone, all her potential would go unrealized, and in that moment Naruto made a resolution. He'd get stronger so he could protect everyone, so girls who weren't even ninja yet wouldn't have to die to reveal secret plots and whole clans wouldn't be killed off because of the ideas of a scant few.

For the first time Naruto felt true anger, potent fury that he distilled down into cold purpose. From that point on he vowed that he'd do everything in his power to ensure that there were no more Ino Yamanakas, no more Sasuke Uchihas, even, he swore, no more Itachis. He would break the cycle, or die trying. As the procession began he took the lead, escorting Sakura and Sasuke to the bier where Ino laid as beautiful as a flower, standing in stoic silence as the other two paid their last respects to the girl who had saved them all.

… … …

Kakashi stared at the scroll again. Names, dates and places all written down in an uncannily neat script occupied the expansive document, important events marked in red with small summaries. This was the end result of the Yamanaka girl's memories; they'd had to carefully sift through the tale she'd told, singling out the crucial details so they could be acted on. Once the first change was made, others would follow. After a certain point the information would no longer be useful, and they'd be working blind again. Already they'd made some changes, not the least of which had been the Yamanaka girl's untimely demise; more were in the works, teams already in action, both within Konoha and without. He had been personally chosen to oversee Naruto's education, and repair the damage being done at the Academy before it could really take hold. The young jinchuuriki was due to be told the legacy he'd inherited soon, and would need all the support he could get.

There was a smaller list on the desk, the names of Ino's family: the husband she'd never marry, the children yet to be born that never would be thanks to the desperate act of a woman at the end of her rope who had nothing to lose and no regrets. He found it hard to imagine facing down an implacable army, a force so massive that even the combined might of the five great villages were overwhelmed. The things which Ino had written down in the brief time she'd been allotted before she suffered a severe—and thankfully instantly lethal—aneurysm were beyond belief and yet one of them had already been confirmed. Danzo was now a corpse, hanged as a traitor, his forces disbanded and a mission to Ame already in the planning. Itachi Uchiha was being heralded as a martyr, a tragic victim of circumstance (his absence from the village now sanctioned and silently insisted upon) while Sasuke's quest for vengeance was stopped in its tracks. Exposure to Naruto was helping him some—Kakashi was no fool to believe that the young Uchiha would ever be the same boy he'd been a few short weeks ago—but he was no longer brooding and seemed grateful for the companionship.

For a brief moment he wished that he could be on the team that was tracking down that Zetsu character, the key to the false Madara's plans and the catalyst of the world's destruction. Such a creature could not be allowed to exist; the diplomatic envoy was armed with foreknowledge of Nagato's intentions and headed by Jiraiya himself. If the self-styled god would listen to anyone, it would be him. He just prayed the sage would be careful. The last thing they needed was for Tsunade to catch wind of his fall and rampage through the elemental countries on a revenge kick of her own.

Tracing his fingers over the names Ino had written down, the ink on the page stained with her tears as she remembered a love never experienced, recalled the children she'd held in her arms and watched fall victim to the swarm, he made a resolution. No more living in the past, no more hiding behind excuses and failed promises. Making his way to the window, Kakashi perched on the sill, prepared to depart, and leave the Hokage's office behind; as he did so he cast one last, forlorn look at the Old Man, at the scroll sitting on the desk. No words passed between them. None needed to.

… … …

_The slaughter of the Uchiha Clan was perpetrated by Itachi Uchiha, yes, but he was as much victim as the men and women he cut down. His wish was to remove the conspirators and install more moderate leaders in their stead; however, Danzo Shimura interceded and handed him alternate orders that he claims came down from the top, signed off by himself, Koharu Utatane and stamped with the Sandaime's seal. Thus the actual massacre was orchestrated by the commander of the secret ROOT division in direct contravention to the orders of Hokage Sarutobi. There was another man present at the time of the slaughter, however, one that in the future claimed to be Madara Uchiha before the real Madara was resurrected by a forbidden technique._

_This is just a footnote; the real instigation for the future I bore witness to began in Ame, either during the Third Secret War, or shortly afterward—Naruto was never forthcoming on the exact date. What he did tell me, however, was that Danzo Shimura was, again, responsible for the bloodshed which ripped the country apart so soon after it had begun to recover from the war. Had Danzo not acted, Hanzo would not have set his sights on Yahiko and his group (maybe he would have even welcomed them as fellow protectors, but we will never know), and Nagato would not have begun a rebellion which even now wrenches the Land of Rain to shreds._

_Danzo was not, unfortunately, to blame for Orochimaru's betrayal, much as I would like to pin that on him as well, but he was instrumental in providing the Snake Sannin the changes to Konoha's patrol routines and security codes, which allowed him to bring a hostile force inside the gates without having to first overcome the barrier wall. Indeed, thanks to his actions the barrier was probably deactivated months before the Chuunin Exams which led to the Sandaime's death. His personal files, should you manage to capture him, will easily have more than enough proof of guilt to have him hanged, or worse._

_On the note of traitors there is a dangerous triple-agent and all around self-interest medic ninja by the name of Kabuto Yakushi who at the time of this writing is probably still working for Sasori of the Red Sand but entertaining making a switch to serve Orochimaru for as long as it amuses him. Regardless of what knowledge may be gleaned from him, do not leave him alive._

_With luck we may be able to forestall the machinations of the renegade ninja group Akatsuki, preferably through peaceful methods; at his current level of ability with his bloodline limit Nagato will be a dangerous opponent at best. If negotiations fail I would recommend a flee-on-sight order for him as well as Konan._

_I have listed the names of the other members of Akatsuki and how to defeat them, and if they are not yet members then it will remove several dangerous Missing-Nins from the world. I have also listed the identities of the nine jinchuuriki but not their affiliations save for two: Gaara of the Desert, son of the Yondaime Kazekage, and Yagura, Yondaime Mizukage. The former is under the effects of an incomplete seal as well as heavy amounts of psychological torture both from the villagers and his bijuu, and the latter is under the effects of a genjutsu, or if not then while he may be acting in the interest of his nation's safety taking it to unacceptable extremes. In both cases use your own discretion in how to deal with the problems. You may be able to convince the Kazekage that it is more sensible to allow someone of Jiraiya's caliber to repair the seal and increase Gaara's effectiveness as a defender (emphasis mine); Yagura on the other hand is a dangerous proposition on the best of days._

_I must now write of my demise in the time I projected my memories from. Four months after the formation of the Grand Shinobi Alliance and the start of the Fourth Secret War, the Zetsu Army began guerrilla warfare against the alliance. Their capability to mimic both form and chakra signature made them the perfect infiltrators; however they could not fool Naruto's Fox techniques, which he had learned only a short time before. His partially released bijuu form allowed him to feel a person's intentions and thus weed out (sorry) the impostors, as well as leaving new growth everywhere he walked. He fought and, with Killer B's help, defeated the resurrected jinchuuriki of the other seven bijuu, and then faced off against the revived Madara as well as the Masked Ninja._

_I can't remember the exact details of what happened next as I wasn't there for them and the story sounded much better when Naruto told it anyway; what I do know is that eventually we won the war and the alliance was dissolved, though peace remained between the great five. What we could not have foreseen was Zetsu. We thought we had rounded up and destroyed all of them after the war. We were wrong. Zetsu's ability to mimic anything with chakra meant he was able to hide in the forests undetected, so long as he did not project any intent of any sort. During the course of the war he was augmented by Yakushi to better serve his role as the ultimate soldier; perverted with the ability to create more copies of himself with the ease at which Naruto created Shadow Clones, and cursed with an insatiable hunger, he began his slow march across the continent. Most they simply devoured. Some they consumed body and soul, denying their victims the sweet release of the Shinigami's embrace. These became the commanders of the army. They existed purely to satisfy that unquenchable appetite, that constant need to feast on the flesh of their fellow man._

_Whether this was a result of the experimentation or some subtle, self-contained genjutsu cast by the Masked Man or Yakushi before they died I cannot say. What I can say is that they consumed entire cities first as they marched first across the northern territories, then turned south towards Konoha. He feasted on everything before him, man and beast alike; if it was made of meat, he ate it. And the more he ate the more of himself he made, and the more he made the more they ate. More than once they turned on themselves to satiate that hunger, and more than once entire divisions stood before them only to have no trace left in the aftermath._

_The worst part, however, was not the army. The worst part was the squads that hunted specific ninja. Even the combined might of the bijuu was not enough to bring the continent to its knees. It was not any legendary warrior with phenomenal power that led to the total annihilation of all I held dear. All it took was Zetsu. If nothing else, find him, destroy him, leave no trace. All other things can be managed. Zetsu, and only Zetsu, must be unequivocally eradicated, down to the last molecule._

_I do this not for my son, who I know will never exist now. Forgive me, Choushiro, for not being able to hold you again, to say those words you so love to hear. Be good for your uncle Chouji. Forgive me, my dearest husband (I shall not name him here lest he pine after what cannot be any longer), for not being able to save myself in the end. Maybe with this you'll be able to live again, and find love as you did before, though it pains me to know that it won't be me that you hold at night, that you see in the mornings._

_Forgive me, Sakura, for not being able to rescue you and your mentor from the endless horde, for needing you to buy time for my escape. Forgive me, all of you, for failing to see what I should have seen. But I have kept my mind closed since I was ten years old, and if not for that I might have been able to warn of the coming danger, might have been able to hold the true Zetsu until he could be slain so that the army would crumble. Forgive me for being too late. Maybe with my death I can allow all of you to have a future again._

_That's all I can ask._

_-Ino Yamanaka, Seventh Hokage_


	3. A Stupid Plan

"Why are we doing this again?" Eleven-year-old genin Iruka asked for the fifth time, and it was all that Kurenai, four years his senior and a rank higher, could do not to throttle him.

"Because _obviously,_" she replied with a note of exasperation, "the Hokage has gone completely insane and so has everyone else in this village." She took a moment to make sure that the bundle in her arms was still asleep, Iruka enlisted to carry all the heavy stuff in their madcap escape. It had been Iruka's talents that had let them enter into the tower to begin with so they could listen in on one of the emergency meetings between Hiruzen and his advisors concerning a newborn infant, and while Iruka was apparently taking things in stride, Kurenai was on the edge of fury.

"But he had to know what he was doing when he told them, right? I mean, he _is _the Hokage." Hefting the pack higher onto his shoulders, Iruka looked back towards the rapidly-dwindling village of Konoha, suppressing a wistful sigh. So many opportunities to cause mayhem lost forever. He hoped wherever they were going next was even half as understanding of his antics or else he might actually get bored. And when Iruka got bored bad things happened.

"Hokage or not that was the dumbest thing out of anyone's lips since the beginning of intelligent thought. We're doing the kid a favor, Iruka, now quit your whining and run faster. They're going to find out sooner or later." Nodding, Iruka touched the plate of his hitai-ite and the line running through the leaf symbol, wondering if they'd made the right choice. They were officially kidnappers now, even if people had been raising holy hell over the burden little Naruto, not even a week old, was carrying. Iruka didn't consider himself a fool even if he did goof around to make other people laugh and get eyes on him, so he had to wonder why he'd agreed to this plan. Kurenai hadn't even had to pull rank.

There was exactly one other person who knew what Kurenai's intentions were and that had been Mighty Guy, or whatever he said his name was, two if one counted Asuma, the other member of Squad Five (long since disbanded since everyone in it was now a chuunin but even if the team was broken up its members still tended to gravitate toward each other) and neither were likely to say anything if they even partially supported Kurenai's decision.

_Sorry, Kushina-sensei, but we can't stay in Konoha anymore. It is clearly dying._ Kurenai didn't like the idea of abandoning her hometown with Minato's only child in tow, taking on the status of missing-nin just to preserve an innocent life, though it had been the only sane course of action in her mind. Clearly, she couldn't let her teacher's little boy be murdered—or worse. Obviously people had no faith in the Hokage anymore if they would believe this newborn to be the demon fox reincarnate, or susceptible to being taken over by said fox. It was sickening and just thinking about it made her want to retch. "You remember the plan, right?"

"I came up with it, didn't I? There was an assassination plot against the family, backed by members of the clan, so you took your newborn and your kid brother and ran as far away as possible. I still don't know where the best destination is, though. Obviously we can't head to Iwa. What's on your mind, go to Kumo or to Suna? They'd look for us in Kusa for sure and Kiri's too far away."

"I think we should head to Nami, Iruka. It's got no ninja and pretty out of the way. There won't be anything there but fishermen and a few small shipping companies if I remember the dossier right." She pursed her lips in thought, only belatedly noticing Iruka's sly smile. "What?"

"I'm just having trouble imagining you with blonde hair and blue eyes." It was a little odd to him that the boy's eyes were open already after just three days, but open they were, wide and curious and Iruka could tell that this boy was going to be a troublemaker if given even half a chance. Kurenai snorted and nearly missed the next branch, correcting her footing enough so she didn't fall or lose the most precious of cargo.

"Keep it up, Iruka, and I'm changing the plan to make you my husband, and you get to dye your hair while I get to wear the contacts. They'd believe that, I think."

"Me, be your lover? I guess I could work with that. And going to Wave we won't even have to pick out new names. Maelstrom, Crimson—like red sky at night, sailor's delight—and me, Dolphin."

"Assuming we even get that far, _lover_. Assuming they don't catch up with us first, and assuming they don't kill us on the spot for robbing the Hokage's Tower of both the baby _and_ the Forbidden Scroll."

"You…you didn't. You _did!_ I've been carrying a collection of kinjutsu for the last twenty miles and you didn't tell me? Oh man, this is revenge for the ferret, isn't it?" At Iruka's outburst, the little—if you could call a fifteen pound baby that—Uzumaki started wailing loudly, at a volume that could wake the dead, prompting Kurenai to wince and do the only thing she could think of to shut him up. Dropping to the forest floor (since it was beginning to thin out anyway) she ignored the fact that Iruka was landing three feet away from her, unzipped her chuunin vest and stuck her nipple into Naruto's mouth.

"There, that ought to hold him for awhile," she commented after a few minutes of loud, greedy suckling (didn't this boy know how to be _quiet?_) placated the infant, and Kurenai finally took notice of Iruka's stare. "I was a wet-nurse for my cousin while she was in the hospital, alright? It never really stopped so quit staring!"

"I was more wondering why you didn't have anything on under your vest. Never mind, if he's done being noisy can we keep going? And, uh, sorry for staring at you like that…it's just…"

"Don't worry about it, Iruka. At least you're not being a pervert about it like that Kakashi. One less thing I'll have to worry about, I suppose." Together, the pair started running again, Iruka popping a soldier pill into his mouth to replenish his reserves and ease the fatigue that carrying the physical and mental weight of the Forbidden Scroll in addition to a week's worth of clothes and as much baby supplies as they could steal was causing him. It was a good thing that he had the memory of Kurenai's pale flesh and perfect roundness to keep him going.

… … …

"Would someone mind explaining to me," Hiruzen said, glaring at each of the ANBU operatives in turn, before settling his irate expression on the gathered shinobi and clan heads, "how a newly-appointed genin and a single chuunin managed to enter the tower undetected, spy on a private conversation, and then take it upon themselves to flee with an important treasure without anyone noticing them or figuring out what they were up to?" He spoke, of course, not of the Forbidden Scroll, but of Naruto, son of the Fourth Hokage and likely the last member of the famed Uzumaki clan. The Scroll was a loss in and of itself, seeing as how in addition to hundreds of kinjutsu it held diagrams and descriptions of every seal ever invented by the Uzumaki in their long history of association with Konoha, but having Naruto gone was even worse. Any one of the other four ninja villages would jump at the chance to have not only a highly skilled genjutsu specialist, but the Kyuubi's vessel, under their care and keeping.

He could only hope, as the assembled ninja shifted nervously, that the missing-nin (who was already up for consideration as a jounin, or had been anyway) and her accomplice had picked somewhere obscure or lacking a ninja village to flee to. Not that he really blamed them. If they had overheard last night's meeting, and judging from the disabled security seals they had, Hiruzen fully understood why they would have undertaken such a course of action. He could easily order every available ninja out on a search and in fact should, but he thought that if they were assigned to such a mission everyone involved would find a way to 'fail'.

Indeed, as he looked at the faces and body language of those gathered, Sarutobi could tell that each and every one of them were to some degree pleased that Uzumaki was gone from the village. Some probably wished he were dead, but those were few and far between, although more than one person (Danzo didn't really count in his estimation) showed some disappointment or in a few cases fear that they no longer had any control over the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails. _I should have just kept my stupid mouth shut and left him at an orphanage. Or better yet sent him to Tsunade; his cousin for all her flaws would still have been a better choice than what I settled on._

As none of those present had any real explanation for their failure, Hiruzen decided to dismiss them all, with an admonition.

"From this day forward the disappearance of Kurenai, Iruka and Naruto is an S-Rank secret. As far as the general public is concerned, Naruto died of complications from the sealing, while both shinobi mentioned fled the village as a result of PTSD. They are not going to be posted to the Bingo Book and no bounty is going to be placed. Higher-ranking ninja and all ANBU will have standing orders to report any sighting of the rogue shinobi, but no attempt to capture, eliminate or otherwise engage is to be made. Are we understood?" As one the group nodded and voiced their assent. It so _pleased_ Hiruzen that not one of them had a complaint concerning the arrangement. He sighed and reached for his pipe as they began to shuffle out. _What is this world coming to?_

… … …

"I'll fix it!" two-year-old Naruto chirped happily as he went for the pieces of the vase he'd just knocked over. He was almost there when Iruka's arms caught him up and away from the sharp fragments—even as fast as he could heal, his father didn't want the toddler causing himself any unnecessary pain and being as accident-prone as he was, Naruto already had plenty of that. He simply had too much energy for a boy his age, though that was a sentiment surely echoed by parents the world over and not just the young couple renting (to own) a two-bedroom shack in one of the smaller towns of Wave Country's Sanzaku Island. Of the ten or so that made up the small nation, Sanzaku was the largest, at just under fourteen miles long and roughly twelve wide at its thickest point, shaped somewhat like a kite.

"I don't think so, squirt, you'll get ouchies and then we have to put bandages on you. You don't want ouchies, do you, Naruto?" Iruka used that same calm tone he preferred as when he was haggling with Shinichiro over the price of the fish he caught, and trying to wrangle a few lemons out of the man so Kurenai could make one of her custards—and to craft some of the bleach that kept her hair a pale sunflower color rather than its native black. "Be a good boy and go bother mommy while I get this cleaned up, alright?" For the last two years Iruka had been living with Kurenai as Naruto's parents, though they went with the family name of Makinami just in case someone did come looking for them in this part of the world. People tended to look at them strangely from time to time, but were friendly enough and nobody ever pried into their affairs too much and for the most part they lived a quiet life.

For the most part, anyway; any house with Naruto in it was doomed to become the scene of some strange occurrence or disaster, usually with said boy sitting in the middle of it all with an obliviously happy grin pasted on his cheeks. Putting the introspection aside, Iruka set Naruto on his feet and watched as he bumbled along into the other room to interrupt Kurenai in the middle of her stitching. Their shinobi training aside, the pair of them had taken odd jobs to make ends meet and feed Naruto's massive appetite, though they still found time to make training of it. Sometimes they were even able to slip out into the woods (Wave country didn't have any proper forests, at least to their way of thinking), and used that as an opportunity to settle any disagreements over who took what job. Sometimes Kurenai bristled at having to perform more 'womanly' tasks such as needlework, until Iruka reminded her that job belonged to men as well, otherwise what the hell were tailors for?

"Naruto, no, don't pull on that!" Hearing Kurenai's scolding tone made him chuckle; the brat had probably located the cord to the sewing machine.

"Sorry, mama!" came the sweet reply. Of course, he didn't sound sorry in the slightest.

… … …

They'd shared a bed for three years, said the things people expected to hear from married couples (even though Iruka was only fourteen he looked at least four years older than that), held hands when they visited the marketplace, sweated together to make the house larger and even seen each other naked on more than one occasion—bathing their son was always an adventure—but this was the first time they'd actually _kissed_ and Kurenai found herself wanting more.

"How come…" she began, but the words trailed off as she witnessed Iruka in a rare state: complete and total shyness.

"We've never kissed? I think it's because before we were too focused on keeping Naruto out of trouble, and looking over our shoulders, to start thinking of each other that way, and so we sort of became like that without even realizing it." When he wanted to be, Iruka, the man who had masqueraded as her husband long enough for her to start believing it, could be damn insightful. And searching inwardly, Kurenai realized that it was true. She had started feeling something for him, something deep and possessive, and it was hard to believe that it hadn't always been this way.

Looking into her eyes, Iruka brought himself forward and claimed her lips again. Before either realized it, they had moved into their bedroom, and Kurenai was looking at him with a heated gaze, cheeks flushed and breathing heavy. "We shouldn't, Iruka."

"Maybe not, but I'm going to anyway." He kissed her again, hands clasping her own, and all doubts fled as her body hit the sheets. Any protest she might have had died when she experienced how tender that his hands could be.

The next evening he left a velvet box on her nightstand.

It was six months before she put it on, but by then she knew that he wasn't playing games. The portrait was complete. The Makinami family was real.

… … …

"I just think it's weird, alright? Most kids I know don't have fangs." The dentist shook his head and passed Naruto a sucker, root beer flavored, which the five year old eagerly stuck into his mouth. He then proceeded to ignore the grown-ups, because he'd always had fangs and dad told him that just because someone else said it was strange didn't make it true. And his dad was always right and that's why he was going to take that teaching job so he didn't have to go out fishing and be gone for a whole week whenever they started running low on money.

"We've been over this before, doctor," Kurenai chided the older man with a bemused smile. One hand pressed into the armrest of the chair she sat in to give her body the extra push it needed so she could stand, then held her palm out for her son to help him down from the dentist's couch. "As long as he's healthy, I don't care if my boy has a shark's mouth. You did a good job behaving like that, Naruto. What do you say to Doctor Katsuragi?"

"Umm, thanks for the sucker and umm…thanks for making sure that I'm not gonna be all snaggletooth and stuff?" Katsuragi laughed and ruffled Naruto's hair, sending the unruly strands into even more of a chaotic frenzy that the boy desperately tried to smooth down into their normal disheveled state, with little success. No matter how hard they tried, neither hair sprays nor gels managed to suppress the wild bush of Naruto's head, and only total saturation seemed to have any effect. The children in his primary school class tended to call him sunflower as a result.

"Yes, of course, Naruto-kun. Just remember to brush every day and I have no reason to see why those shouldn't last you well into your eighties."

"Wow, eighty's old! I can't even count that high!" The adults shared a laugh, and Naruto continued to suck on his lollipop. Privately, both doctor and mother were glad that the sharp fangs hadn't come in until _after_ Naruto's biting phase had already passed. Katsuragi turned an eye to Kurenai's swollen stomach, quirking his lips.

"I trust that when the time comes I'll be looking after that one as well, yes?"

"Assuming that Iruka ever lets her out of his sight, I think so. He's got a protective streak a mile wide. Thank you for your time, doctor; I should get this little one home."

"Take care of yourself, Kurenai-chan, and tell your husband hello and thank you for that carving."

"When don't I? I'll make sure he hears it. Come on, Naruto, I'll buy you some ramen." Naruto's excited shout needed no translation.

… … …

"Alright, Naruto, you know how to keep a secret, right?"

"Yeah, dad, I know all about that. Why, did you get in trouble? Did Mari eat bubble bath and I'm not supposed to tell anyone?"

"When did Mari eat bubble bath?" Kurenai demanded, shooting Naruto a withering glare. "Anyway, no, squirt, since you're eight years old now we've decided to teach you how to use your chakra."

"What's that, mom?"

"Chakra, Naruto," Iruka explained, "is the combination of physical and spiritual energies that all beings possess. Without it life would be impossible, at least as far as we're aware. You in particular have a lot of chakra that you can use, so we're going to teach you how to access and manipulate it." This had been a matter of some debate between Iruka and his wife of five years (eight if one counted the three years when it was just a cover story), and they'd finally compromised. Wave did not have a hidden village and they were not going to start one, either, but a few of the citizens showed some talent for the shinobi arts, so Iruka was running weekend classes to teach those who had the capacity and who wanted to learn how.

Mostly he was playing it by ear and stressing the facts that he was not an active ninja and likely never would be; all the same he had the knowledge and he wanted to share it. Not teaching Naruto how to utilize his innate ability would be a crime against nature itself.

"Here's what you do, son," Kurenai told him, speaking pleasantly and placing herself at eye level with her child. "Picture inside you a water wheel. Then picture water pushing against it, one stream from above, and one from below. You need them both to drive the wheel, or else nothing will happen." While she spoke, Kurenai took his hands and placed them into the proper position for drawing out chakra, watching as the boy scrunched up his face and began to focus.

The reaction was visible, as a yellow haze built up around Naruto, snapping outward suddenly as he released his focus, panting hard. "Did I do it?"

"That was…impressive, Naruto." A visible reaction to the first attempt at drawing out chakra was nothing short of astounding, in all actuality. "Try it again, but this time, take the wheel out of the picture. Imagine the two flows mixing together like a whirlpool, joining together and that new stream flowing through your entire body." Iruka nodded at him to continue, and as instructed Naruto began to concentrate his energy. This time the yellow haze was thicker than before, sticking close to his body, and then it blended into and disappeared within his form, causing his eyes to snap open in surprise.

"I can feel it, dad! I can feel my chakra. Is this what it's like for you and mom when you're walking up trees and fighting with each other upside down?"

"You saw that, Naruto?" his mother asked him, voice growing perilously calm. Kurenai was never calm, she always had some emotion in her speech and when it disappeared he _knew_ he was in trouble.

"Kind of by accident, you see, I know I was supposed to be in the house helping Isaribi-san watch Mari but I was bored so I followed you out to the woods and you guys are _so cool_ and now you can teach me to do the same stuff and everyone's gonna be so jealous and—"

"Naruto, remember how we asked you if you could keep a secret?"

"Of course I can! I hold all the secrets! Oh. I get it. I can't tell anyone I can do that stuff if I want to learn it, right?"

"That's it exactly, Naruto. You can't show off your ninja skills just because you have them, and never talk about it with anyone outside of my special weekend class, especially if they wear a headband with a metal plate on it." Kurenai brought out her old hitai-ite, showing it to her child, letting him hold the heavy bandanna with the appropriate reverence.

"Ninja will be wearing these if you ever see one, though the symbol may be different. You cannot, under any circumstance, let on that you've got ninja training, especially to anyone wearing this symbol. If you see one, hide. It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, you hide and you stay hidden until either me or your father comes to get you."

"How will I know it's you?"

"When's your birthday, Naruto?"

"October tenth!"

"And what do we always get you on your birthday," Iruka continued.

"Something orange…hey, so it's like the password we use to get into the tree fort, right?"

"Close enough. And if someone happens to guess right on both counts, what do I always call your mother?"

"You're always calling her your beloved sunset." It was mushy, but Naruto had heard it often enough to know it was his dad's pet name for his mother.

"Correct, Naruto. So if we come to get you and we don't answer those questions correctly, get your sister and run away. Far away, even across the sea if you have to."

"I don't want to leave you and mom!"

"Hopefully you'll never have to. Now come on, let's see if Isaribi's available to babysit your sister and we'll start teaching you out where you saw us practicing."

… … …

It was Naruto's thirteenth birthday and as a reward, his parents were opening up the Forbidden Scroll that had been locked in the basement since the day he was born, and he was going to get to learn a technique from it. So far he already had the Kawarimi and Henge mastered, could stand for hours on both trees and water, and could weave some pretty good genjutsu (though after the Noodle incident he was not allowed to use them except in emergencies).

It helped to distract him from the fact that he wasn't allowed to go into the woods lately, or into the town on the north end of the island, where old man Tazuna was building his bridge; this Gato guy that had come a few months ago was messing everything up and had even hired a few ninja to make sure that the bridge didn't get finished, and Naruto, operating on the words he'd been told four years earlier, was to stay hidden from the shinobi. Word on the street was that Tazuna had gone to some place called Konoha to get help and that meant he could run into ninja wearing the Leaf symbol if he weren't careful. To top it all off, his mother was near to popping with a pair of twins, and with the island in such a state he had to stay home and look after her.

Seeing as how it was his birthday, though, he was finally getting to learn something beyond what his parents saw fit to teach him. Sure, he wouldn't ever get to take on missions like his mom used to before she got pregnant with him, but he'd still be a ninja, in spirit if not in lifestyle, and helping people from the shadows wasn't against the rules.

"So the first technique listed is the Shadow Clone. Can I learn this one, mom? It'd be a real help and then I could run errands again."

"Sure you can, Naruto. In fact it's perfect for you. Just remember to read the whole description, and use it sparingly when you're not practicing it." He nodded and started to study the scroll, the party long since over. Most people weren't in the mood to celebrate, Inari especially after he'd lost his dad. Naruto had been there that day and had a pretty heated argument with his parents afterward, but they'd talked him down. A man with no arms would only be a liability to his family—if Kaiza had even had one arm to work with, he knew the story would have been different. And he knew that they weren't supposed to get involved but even Naruto could tell that if things went on much longer, his parents were going to take action.

So Tazuna going to Konoha was both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because maybe finally the situation would get resolved, a curse because it severely limited what Naruto was allowed to do. He was thirteen now, damn it, practically an adult! He heard rather than saw Kurenai settling into her favorite chair, the rocker that Iruka had built for her with his own two hands and where she'd read him stories every night, where she held Mari in her little yellow blanket in between feedings. As he perused the instructions for the Shadow Clone, Naruto felt a pang of jealousy for these ninja that were coming to their aid, wishing he could do something to help, too.

He had the power, he was sure, if only they would let him use it! But they were the parents for a reason and if his mom and dad said no, it wasn't just to punish him or deny him something. He would never believe them capable of such cruelty.

… … …

Kurenai lay entangled in her husband's arms after a session of intense, hormone-driven lovemaking, enabled only because Naruto was still in the back yard practicing his new technique and Mari was sleeping over at a friend's, desperate for something approaching a normal atmosphere despite how tense everyone had become. She sighed at his touch on her sensitive bosom, at the fingers playing over the taut skin of her stomach, as if trying to hold the twins' hands already or something silly like that. Iruka had never really lost his playfulness, though he was more serious than ever in recent weeks.

"He's going to try something soon, you know. We raised him too well." His words brought icy fear to Kurenai's heart, and as much as she wanted to disbelieve him, she knew Iruka was right. Naruto had too much of his parents in him, and if he thought for even one moment that he could make a difference, then he was going to go at it with everything he had. They'd run into this problem with him before, only now it could very likely get him killed.

She'd suckled him, changed his diapers, helped him through his first steps and held him close after his first nightmare. School, friends, fishing with his father, holding his baby sister for the first time, seeing the man he was going to be someday in the determined set of his jaw, Mari safe in his arms. And the thought of Naruto running off to fight, and maybe die against, an opponent he had no idea wasn't going to hold back just because he was a relative child in comparison scared Kurenai worse than the time they'd thought he'd gotten lost in the woods and instead he'd fallen asleep on the roof while watching clouds.

Because things were rapidly spiraling out of her control and she was coming to face that truth head-on. Sooner or later Naruto was going to embrace his heritage not only as the son of the Fourth Hokage but as the son of the previous Kyuubi jinchuuriki and her own sensei. If Kushina could see him now, would she be proud of what he was becoming? Would she feel that Kurenai had done a good job, made the right choice in taking him away from the pain that was sure to have resulted from his mere presence in Konoha?

Iruka's gentle kiss brought Kurenai out of her musings, and he gave her a weak, but assured smile.

"Naruto is Naruto. We've done our best to teach him, Kurenai; we just have to trust that he's capable of handling himself. Whether we want him to or not he's going to take on this challenge and though it might hurt us to let him go, we can't shelter him forever. Pray for his safety, maybe. And make sure his kunai are sharp."

… … …

Naruto checked his kit one last time: Kurenai's chuunin vest; an unengraved hitai-ite on his forehead. His father's kunai pouch sat strapped to his left thigh; a makeshift shuriken holster sitting at the small of his back. Tear-resistant pants and toeless shoes completed the ensemble. All he needed now was the orange and black haori that his mom had made for him to wear over the black shirt and green vest, and he'd be all set. And a mask, too, probably, but he didn't have time to look for it.

Collecting the haori from its sacred place in the box under the bed (where was also kept his nightcap and frog wallet), Naruto shrugged his way into it and then opened his window, leaping out into the moonlight. His first order of business was to head over to Tazuna's, check on Inari and his mom; he swore to high heaven that if the kid was _still_ sulking then he'd smack him one but good. He really needed to learn that just because you were hurting didn't mean that life stopped entirely. Naruto was going to deck him hard enough to make him remember, and tell him to stop being such a pussy. And to think he was in Iruka's special classes!

Well, not that he could really blame him. If someone came and cut _his_ dad's arms off and then stabbed him repeatedly in front of everyone before finally lopping his head off, he'd probably go completely berserk, kill everyone responsible, and then lock himself in the basement for a year. No, mourning was acceptable, but the attitude was not. The younger boy's claim that fighting Gato was useless, that he was too strong, made Naruto's blood boil. Didn't he learn anything from the ninja training?

Naruto stopped himself before he could start ranting and looked at the clock. 5:30 AM—if he started now he could get there by sunup, if he cut through the forest. He would get there faster, if it weren't for the fact that he'd be suppressing his chakra as much as possible the whole time. After all, it wouldn't do for the enemy ninja to realize just how much power that he had at his disposal; they might try something stupid, like ask him to join their side, or even something as dumb as trying to capture him. Even if they did succeed at that, nobody could hold Naruto for long. He should know, as people have tried, and failed. Spectacularly, at that; few could catch him and fewer still could keep him.

… … …

"Who the hell is that guy?" Sasuke breathed out in astonishment. One minute he was trapped in Haku's ice dome and the next the mirrors had been shattered by some blond kid wearing a blank hitai-ite and throwing around more clones than he'd seen in his life. Two of the copies were working to steadily remove the senbon from Kiba's body which meant they were solid, and even more intriguing was that his speed was nearly on par with the ice user's own. And through it all he hadn't said a word except to mutter something about 'being late to the party'.

The massive pressure radiating from Kakashi and Zabuza's duel didn't even seem to be fazing him all that much, either; he'd taken one look in that direction and then resumed beating the tar out of Haku, before finally tying him up in a fisherman's net; from the inflection of his words the blond boy had to be a local so how was he flinging around ninja techniques and what had been that spiraling ball he'd broken the mirrors with? Sasuke had to find out more…after they dealt with Zabuza.

"Sorry," was the reply when Sasuke demanded his name and his assistance, "but that's a secret and I've already helped you enough. The workers and villagers should be here soon and then we're going to run Gato off our island. If he's smart he won't come back." He spoke as if it were a foregone conclusion, leading Sasuke to wonder what sort of fisherman could use such powerful techniques. He had to learn more!

"Who's the pink one? She's cute." Tazuna looked like he recognized this kid, though refrained from speaking as there was still a battle going on. Tangible amounts of chakra began suffusing the air and Sakura's gasp of surprise heralded the moment when things started to get interesting. Looking northward, Sasuke saw his mentor's attacks beginning to miss, as were Zabuza's own, and through his newly-triggered Sharingan could see the layers of energy making up the genjutsu, but they were woven so tightly together that he had no idea how to break it.

Watching helplessly as the boy ran towards the fight, Sasuke dragged the still-unconscious Kiba over to Sakura's position (where he would be more easily defensible) and shook his head in disbelief as the kid produced two more nets and proceeded to tie up both Zabuza and Kakashi before letting them out of his illusion. From this distance he couldn't tell what they were saying but Kakashi was clearly surprised to see the blond, as if he were meeting a ghost, while Zabuza on the other hand showed more than a little annoyance at being taken down by an unaffiliated ninja, not even a missing-nin but a rogue with no village.

Then Gato showed up and delivered some speech or another—he didn't quite catch all of it—about how he was going to have Zabuza killed anyway and keep the money for himself, and was about to settle the differences between the two sets of ninja when a kunai stuck itself into the ground at the mercenary businessman's feet. And there standing at the head of a mob of civilians mostly armed with various tools and a few crossbows was Inari, already pulling another kunai out of the pouch at his waist, and he wasn't alone. The mystery blond and more than a few of the villagers pulled kunai and shuriken of their own, some of them leaping up and sticking to the support struts to give themselves a better field of fire.

Gato ordered his men to attack anyway and in the ensuing melee Sasuke was forced to fight against men who had barely any chakra to speak of, Sakura gutted two of them personally and the mystery ninja created a solid clone for every villager that had come to fight. In the end it was a total rout, with injuries sustained but not one of the civilians killed or incapacitated. Even Zabuza and Haku—and thus also Kakashi—had been freed up to wreak havoc. Following the battle, the two missing-nin vanished into the mist to find someplace to recover, and that rogue fighter suggested to Tazuna that they call it the Great Inari Bridge before he, too, disappeared.

"After all," he'd said in parting, "I'm just the son of a fisherman, after all is said and done. Inari's the one who rallied everyone together, and calling it the Great Makinami Bridge doesn't have as nice a ring to it."

… … …

Hiruzen read the report with some measure of amusement, much to Kakashi's consternation. Oh, he'd known that Naruto was still alive, that had been true for the last thirteen years and it was still true now. Now that Kakashi knew the truth, he might have to send an emissary to the Makinami family and try to convince them to come back to Konoha. After all, there were few people as bad at keeping secrets as Kakashi and if he hadn't told his team already he soon would, and things would just snowball from there. Hopefully the anger towards the Kyuubi container would have cooled by now, but some people would never let go of their hate and contract out ninja to eliminate the boy, now a young man.

Though he was curious to see how he had developed under Kurenai's care and Iruka's instruction, Sarutobi knew he could not even think of visiting them—the Hokage taking a personal vacation to Wave country so soon after an A-ranked mission would be seen as unusual at best. More disconcerting was the fact that Naruto seemed to have come up with the Rasengan all on his own, without any outside help. From Kakashi's description the oldest of the Makinami siblings was at least chuunin level, possibly higher, and had to have been personally trained.

It was saddening to see Kakashi's shoulders hunched over as if he were taking this news as a personal betrayal, which he probably was. However he might feel about it, though, Sarutobi's orders still stood, and lest he forget Kakashi had a responsibility to his team.

"I am less than pleased with your students' performance, Kakashi; although yes, they did survive the engagement from the wording used during your debriefing it sounds as if miss Haruno just sat there while Inuzuka and Uchiha both charged in against a more skilled opponent without any sort of a plan. And you only just now taught them tree-walking? Every other jounin I know began improving their students' skills the moment they approved them as genin. Add to this your chronic lateness and I begin to wonder if you are fit to lead a team—your lapse in judgment with continuing the mission despite the increased difficulties says as much to me."

While Kakashi stewed in it, Hiruzen entertained a few thoughts of his own. _'Don't call it the Makinami Bridge', eh, Naruto? I'd heard a teacher by that name was handing out lessons in chakra manipulation, too, but never thought anything of it. Of course, that name sounds like Iruka's particular brand of cleverness. Uzumaki and Namikaze combined to become Makinami. It makes perfect sense._ Aside from the fact that Naruto had completely independently come up with the Rasengan or at least something similar, Kakashi had not mentioned him using any jutsu other than the Kawarimi and Shadow Clone. If it was true that the Makinami family had the Forbidden Scroll still, a mission would likely have to be ordered so it could be retrieved. Hiruzen shuddered to think what Kurenai would do if her loved ones were threatened.

"I'm willing to give you one more chance, Kakashi, but you must actually teach them, instead of showing up two hours late and taking them on a D-rank before dismissing them for the day. Although punishment is still in order, so you are forbidden from entering your team in the upcoming chuunin exams. They are clearly not ready. Don't look so down, Hatake; I'm inflicting the same punishment on my own son as well."

_A/N: I don't exactly know where I was going to go with this; it's one of my older ideas, under the general premise of Naruto being raised by Kurenai and/or Iruka. In all probability this version of Naruto would end up becoming a sort of ninja vigilante, traveling around the Elemental Countries, protecting the weak and empowering the strong. He would eventually run into Akatsuki (as when DOESN'T he?) and team up with the other jinchuuriki to beat the crap out of every one of them, blind Tobi, and then retire back to Wave at the ripe old age of twenty to continue on the family tradition of raising fat little babies and teaching people how to defend themselves._

_What would 'Village Hidden in the Spraying Foam' translate out to? And would they call themselves Spray-nin or Wave-nin? It is a mystery.  
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_I may someday finish it, unless someone else wants to take over and make a series from this initial premise.  
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	4. Eye Trouble

Eye Trouble

The village hidden in the leaves, Konohagakure, was in celebration. Two months ago it had been nothing more than a fortress with a group of ninja clans camped around it. Word had spread, though, and exiles from other countries, other hidden villages, had made their way to the Fire Country, making their place in the plains beneath the plateau. With them had come their families: merchants, farmers, craftsmen, artisans, refugees and emigrants; the burden steadily grew as the people kept coming and the messages grew more frequent, until finally the Daimyo had decided to meet with the leaders of the fortress. And two days ago his decision had finally arrived: he would approve the creation of a hidden village, and supply funds to begin construction of a city to stand the test of time.

So while they waited for the money and materials to arrive (despite the fact that their newly-appointed leader, Hashirama, Shodaime Hokage, could grow the houses with his Wood Release) the villagers celebrated. Tents had been moved to create a large fairground, palanquins converted into stalls to sell goods and allow youngsters to play games, paper lanterns were strung from tent poles and all in all there was a jovial atmosphere. Hashirama was there with his wife Mito singing songs of praise, puppeteers from Suna put on _Bunraku_ plays, merchants from Earth country plied their wares onto the citizenry and overall it was a pretty damn good time to be alive.

Of course parties meant alcohol and alcohol meant people did things that they wouldn't normally do otherwise, and as the sake, wine, beer and mead flowed, so too did inhibitions. This resulted in a woman named Chitose sneaking into an Uchiha's tent, her pink and white hair mussed up by her state of inebriation (shut up, chakra does weird things when mixed with alcohol), while at the same time on the other side of the camp a young man bearing the name Namikaze was about to enter adulthood in the arms of a lovely Hyuuga girl. There was also the matter that, in yet another part of the camp, another Hyuuga was helping further relations with the visitors from Uzushio, which in this case meant that he was taking a roll in the hay with a lovely young Uzumaki woman—the Hokage's wife, in fact. Ordinarily none of this was enough to raise any fuss (this was a celebration after all and such things could be overlooked) if it weren't for the fact that nine months later both women in question gave birth to healthy baby boys, followed a month later by a baby girl added to the ranks of the Uzumaki. That again would have been overlooked (since they weren't the only ones to get pregnant that night), but neither of the children born ever manifested their family bloodlines and so were allowed to live with their non-Clan parent instead, and in the case of the girl from Whirlpool her mother wasn't about to admit that her first child wasn't her husband's so she was sent to live with her cousins instead.

(It should be noted, for posterity, that Hashirama was very laid-back when he wasn't in a fight and believed in forgiveness more than anything, and he wouldn't dump his wife over some drunken indiscretions. He simply took her into the bedroom, spanked her a few times and told her not to do it again. That Mito enjoyed getting spankings was not at all related to this in _any way._)

Their names were kept in the respective clans' family trees but beyond that no more attention was paid to them. In the intervening years medical technology and theory advanced and the concept of recessive and dominant genes was introduced, and as a war ended something odd happened. The grandson and granddaughter of two separate but related incidents had met and married sometime during the war, the grandson having risen to the office of Hokage, and a man calling himself Tobi wandered into Konoha looking for something very specific. Of course he was in Konoha to cause mischief, but it would take awhile to set his plans in motion and while waiting things tended to get lonely. It wouldn't have mattered much if not for the fact that the woman he chose to relieve his needs was from the Haruno family line, and the end result was that his rather weak Uchiha blood (since he wasn't born as one, naturally) mingled with the latent Uchiha traits present in the main Haruno family. And as a consequence of that, two people who didn't think there was anything special about them were going to get a rude awakening.

Tobi never did meet his daughter, but it's likely he wouldn't have cared anyway.

Fast forward a bit.

The sun was shining brightly down on the road leading to the southwest border of Fire Country, and Team Seven was on the first leg of the fateful journey that would ultimately change their lives. Birds were cawing and chirping and tweeting to each other in the springtime warmth, while the undergrowth lining the road rustled occasionally with the movement of an animal or lizard, though the ever-alert jounin leading the squad knew that none of them were a threat. As they walked in the traditional three-point cover formation that was best for guarding a single VIP client, Kakashi trailing behind to handle any attacks that might come from the rear, Naruto blinked at the sudden haze across his vision, and rubbed at his eyes furiously, which helped clear his sight up, for the moment anyway.

Sasuke took notice of this, and edged forward a little bit, noticing that even though his teammate (he still hesitated to use the word 'friend') had stopped rubbing at his eyes, Naruto was still blinking furiously, as if he'd stared at a light for too long and couldn't get the afterimage out. Frowning, he dropped back and switched positions with Sakura, so he could beckon to Kakashi and lure the man forward so they could converse more quietly. Once the lackadaisical jounin had drawn close, Sasuke, showing uncharacteristic concern, whispered his misgivings to the team leader and asked if they could take a break and examine Naruto. He tried to couch it in terms that would make it seem like he was more worried about the energetic blond's performance than his health, but Kakashi could tell there was just a little bit of apprehension present for Naruto the person instead of Naruto the ninja. Not much, but more than he'd hoped for at this stage. He was about to call a halt when Naruto spoke up.

"Hey, that puddle up ahead is glowing," he said. "No, wait, no, it was just the sunlight, I think." His off-hand comment had the other members of the team on instant alert; there shouldn't be any puddles on a day like this. The shadow of a cloud passed over the puddle in question and Naruto scowled at the glow still dancing on the ground in front of him. Perturbed, he did what any hyperactive twelve year old with access to rapid-combustion materiel would do: in a single, smooth movement, he primed an explosive tag and threw it into the offending light source, and just before it would have gone off two shapes blurred into existence out of their concealment, the detonating tag kicking up a plume of dust behind them.

The rest of the fight proceeded pretty much as it was meant to, though Kakashi passed up the opportunity to scare the life out of his genin and whisked Tazuna up to the safety of the trees instead, leaving his students to gang up on the somewhat underwhelming Demon Brothers (who, it has since been learned, only earned that moniker by virtue of being named Gozu and Mezu rather than any particular amount of skill). Sasuke and Naruto handled Gozu handily, without the spectacle of 'Kakashi' being torn to ribbons to stun the Uzumaki survivor into inaction, and once he was taken care of moved to aid Sakura with Mezu, who she was struggling with until the intervention of her teammates.

All in all, it was a wake-up call for the genin, and though they had handled the situation it proved they weren't as hot as they'd been pretending so far. The aftermath of the fight proceeded as it was pretty much expected to, and they made good time from there to the border, catching a ride out of the bay and into the Land of Waves. As they traveled across the sea, Naruto again started rubbing against his eyes, once more starting to blink at a rapid and consistent pace, despite having gone the last couple of hours without any trouble.

"Naruto, is there a problem?" Kakashi finally asked him, low enough that the ferryman wouldn't start getting nervous.

"No, sensei," he replied just as softly. "It's just…for the last couple of days there's been this weird haze. It's not making it any harder to see, I mean, just making colors less colorful and I see glowing stuff sometimes. And just a few minutes ago when you took your book out, I could see you doing it. Does that make any sense to you?" At this, Kakashi and Sasuke both frowned at the same time, while Naruto continued staring forward, oblivious to their disquiet. Sakura for her part was resting her eyes, as up to that point she'd been poring over a trapsetting handbook, looking for information she didn't already possess. (She was, naturally, completely ignoring the fact that the last time anyone had seen her with it, Naruto had told her to throw that book away as being useless and try her hand at pranking, if she really wanted to learn how to make and lay traps.)

Uncovering his Sharingan, Kakashi gazed intently at his student, and his frown deepened. He couldn't see the chakra network present in the human body, but he _could_ see where it was being used, and other than the tightly-wound ball where he expected to see it, Kakashi also discerned a faint webwork floating near Naruto's eyes. Naturally, the jounin was completely stumped. Though he wasn't an expert on such things, his research into kekkei genkai—dojutsu in particular—he knew the signs and every sign told him that Naruto was in the initial stages of a bloodline release.

With the genin's unique status taken into consideration, Kakashi came to the unnerving conclusion that the chakra network around Naruto's eyes, to say nothing of the optic nerve, were working overtime and the strain was starting to add up. If it was indeed an emergent kekkei genkai like he suspected then Naruto was likely unable to control what his eyes were doing; in other words experiencing a chakra-based version of an eye disorder involving involuntary muscle contractions. That, coupled to the amount of chakra he had available to him, meant that whatever it was he was experiencing couldn't be turned off, _ever_. Kakashi hoped it would turn out to be irritation or an allergic reaction to pollen or something similar; having to explain to the Sandaime why none of Naruto's screenings picked up the presence of a bloodline would be trying, to say the least.

… … …

A week after they'd defeated Gato's men, the bridge was finished and in need of a name. It ended up being called the Great Naruto Bridge over its' namesake protesting that he didn't deserve to get a landmark named after him, even if he'd helped build it and helped defend it against those who would see it destroyed; unfortunately for him the villagers weren't about to let their hero go unrecognized, though at least they promised the whole of Team Seven would be fairly represented when it came time to commission the memorial plaque and statue for the town square.

It was to great fanfare that they finally departed Wave via the very same bridge which had been the cause of the mission to begin with, Sasuke's eyes lingering on Tsunami's figure (hey, he was allowed to fantasize every once in awhile) while Naruto tried to suppress his _MANLY TEARS_ following his goodbyes to Inari, which had Sakura and Kakashi both rolling their eyes. As tough as he acted Naruto could be such a little kid sometimes. They spent the next hour walking at a brisk pace, mostly silent and letting the sounds of nature soothe spirits that had alternately been ground into the dirt and then lifted high above the clouds before reality came crashing back in again. Eventually the peace had to end.

"So, Sasuke, you were checking out Inari's mom, huh?"

"What? I wasn't doing anything of the sort, Naruto."

"Sure you weren't. Hey, she's pretty cute—no offense, Sakura-chan—and makes a strong point for weaponized cooking utensils. I don't think Inari would appreciate having a dad who's only five years older than him, though."

"Oh, shut up, already, Naruto. I wasn't looking at her. That's final."

"If you say so, Sasuke, if you say so. Besides, I think she's sweet on Haku." It was sheer luck that he'd managed to actually strike a knockout blow against the older and more experienced shinobi, but Naruto wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth and start boasting about something he knew was a total fluke. The pseudo-ninja had been a bit heartbroken over losing his mentor, but despite that, had found something to hold onto all the same, having sworn to stay with the people of Wave until they'd recovered from the problems he'd helped, if circumspectly, to cause. "Hey, I bet now that you've got your Sharingan then Kakashi's gonna spend a lot more time with you, huh, teach you how to use it? Lucky."

"Luck has nothing to do with it, Naruto."

"Yeah, I guess it means me and Sakura will just have to get stronger, too, so we can kick your ass if you ever start getting an inflated head."

"Tch, as if you could even lay a finger on me."

"What's that? Then what do you call our last spar?"

"I was going easy on you."

"Ha! You just don't want to admit that you're not as good in the real world as you'd like to think!" At that point Sakura stepped in, bonking both boys on the head (Naruto a little harder than Sasuke), forestalling the fight before it broke out. She knew they were easily fast enough to dodge her and aware enough to block the incoming fists if they so desired so it pleased her that the bickering genin took their punishment without comment, rolling her eyes at how nonsensical they could be sometimes.

Caught up in all of the silliness that was Team Seven none of the genin noticed that they were being followed, and Kakashi was patently ignoring it since there were all sorts of things that could be shadowing a group of travelers on the road. Wild beasts knew better than to attack a squad of shinobi, at least the common varieties found outside of ninja villages and their immediate surroundings; bandits and dire animals, on the other hand, were not quite as wise, sometimes even having the skill or strength to back up their arrogance. Still, he paid it no mind, and the journey continued unhindered until nightfall. By his estimation they still had another three days before they reached Konoha.

The realization that Naruto had a Clan bloodline (and what a glorious field day the Hyuuga were going to have with _that_) combined with the fact that they were faced with an opponent whose skills far outmatched the genins' own—victory secured only thanks to Naruto's battlefield diplomacy—hinted to Kakashi that maybe he should be taking their training more seriously and save the teamwork stuff for later. He'd already seen that Naruto and Sasuke could work together when it really mattered so his focus was going to fall now on getting them stronger, Sakura especially. As a last line of defense, she wasn't a very good one. She had her uses, of course, and he'd never in his life met anyone with control as good as hers, but in the long run her current skills posed more of a risk than a reward.

Their tail had diverted into the woods some ways back and Kakashi heaved a sigh of relief, muffled by his mask and the sound of a page turning. They'd go a little bit farther and then make camp for the night and he would talk to them about training—real training this time, not some half-assed effort to show them something they should have known already. Shrugging, Kakashi flipped his book to another page and suppressed a titter. Nah, they were fine.

Smoke pellets erupted around them and Kakashi reflexively held his breath, since the mask didn't filter out toxins or anything that might be detrimental to a shinobi's health, but Naruto and Sasuke weren't quite so quick on the uptake and breathed in suddenly when the bombs went off; Sakura, he'd seen, had done the smart thing and leaped up into the trees, well above the cloud, reminding him that even if she wasn't that good physically she'd still gotten top marks and was all in all a pretty solid thinker…most of the time. Whenever Sasuke wasn't around, Sakura could almost be called competent. When he _was_, though…all bets were off.

Of course now Sasuke was unconscious in the middle of the road, Naruto was staggering around drunkenly (showing that whatever was in that smoke wasn't affecting him the way it was supposed to) and they were surrounded by about a dozen of the thugs that Gato had hired which had somehow managed to get away from the fracas. They looked decidedly pissed off, meaning they'd heard their boss was dead and the money had vanished.

Sakura kept to the trees, one hand in her shuriken pouch and the other poised to grab a kunai for self-defense. She was pretty sure she had the advantage in speed over the mercenaries due to her ninja training—certainly, Sakura was faster than civilians her age, male and female alike—but they still had the advantage of weight and size over her and she wasn't about to go leaping in front of any swords. Half of the men went after Kakashi without preamble, simply charging him with weapons raised (a stupid idea on a good day), another four went after Naruto intent on putting him down but were tripped up by his unpredictable movements, and the last two…one stayed on the ground but the other pulled a pair of kunai and launched himself straight at Sakura while Kakashi was engaged.

She knew he wasn't going to get to her in time and as the scarred-up thug came towards her Sakura braced herself against her fear, pulling a kunai from her pouch to grip in a shaking hand, and she readied herself to intercept the attack, despite the trembling in her spine. As she tensed in preparation she recalled a tidbit she'd read once, a factoid which suggested that some mercenary groups were trained in the use of chakra to improve their effectiveness when dealing with bandits and rival gangs.

The thug accelerating toward her must have been one of those groups, given how he was moving quite a bit faster than she'd expect out of a man his size, and though she knew there would be no headband proclaiming which village he'd once served if any at all he was certainly going to be at least high genin level…and as he rushed on Sakura found herself faced with a dilemma. She knew she wasn't strong enough to fight him. Was she fast enough to run away? Could she slow him down and get back to the ground where she could fight better? As she wavered, he let fly with his knives and Sakura saw her own life flashing before her eyes, gaze never leaving the kunai as they sped towards her, certain to sink in and pin her to a trunk. Rationality fled her mind at the same time that chakra flooded her body, a fear response inevitable. With no time to think, no time to react, she thought only about burning this moment into her memory, so that if she survived she'd be able to go over what she did wrong and be better prepared for next time.

All of a sudden the incoming weapons seemed to be moving much slower, still coming alarmingly fast but now they were at least visible and she realized she had a chance after all. Twisting to the side allowed the kunai to pass by her with room to spare, and she kept turning, fingers dipping into her shuriken holster, whipping a brace of three at the bandit faster than she thought she was capable of. They were still painfully slow to her eyes, even as they spun menacingly through the air and sunk into the bandit's arm, loosening his grip on the sword he was holding.

Still he came on and Sakura slipped into the basic taijutsu stance, lunging forward as soon as the man hit the branch she was standing on and catching him in the gut with a solid blow; she was forced to give ground lest the sword cleave into her but it was still such a pathetically slow swing and she evaded it easily, losing only a few strands of hair to the cutting edge and then her kunai was out in a reverse grip, flashing black in the growing twilight, slicing upward against her attacker's shoulder and severing a tendon forcing him to switch to his off hand. That was even worse and when he charged down the bough at her, Sakura leaped up over his sideways slash and kicked him in the head, knocking him down to the road below before she followed, intending to drive an axe heel into his back that would end the fight for him. Even if he was using ninja tools, he wasn't trained like one.

She was stopped by the last of the mercenaries grabbing her collar and smacking her against a tree hard enough to daze the genin. He was _fast_, much faster than anyone else in the fray save perhaps Kakashi, and rather than stick a knife into her belly the fighter looked instead to be…amused? Through the haze in her mind resulting from the impact, she briefly registered him saying something about there being _two_ Sharingan brats and _needing to report this_ before he disappeared in what could only have been a Body Flicker, leaving her to wonder why the hell there was a jounin-level shinobi in with a group of low-ranking heavies. It didn't make sense to her at all. Neither, for that matter, did Naruto's laughing. She looked over to the blond, finding him slumped against a tree, one hand covering his face while the other dug a kunai into the dirt near an unconscious bandit's head.

"Hey, Sakura, check your eyes. I think you're gonna get a kick out of this one." Confused as to why he would tell her something like that (and noticing that he had several clones out tying up the mercenaries) she withdrew a compact signal mirror from her pocket and glanced into it casually.

"Oh my God!" she shrieked, dropping the mirror. Sasuke heard this just as he was roused by Kakashi, looking at Sakura with a decidedly annoyed expression on his face.

"Very funny, Naruto, now change back."

"I'm over here, bastard," Naruto retorted. "We got hit with knockout gas…I got some clones out to watch us before I hit the deck," he fibbed, "and Kakashi just now woke us up. He and Sakura must have beaten up all these dudes."

"But…but…this is so unfair. You know how hard I had to work for mine? And you two just say 'okay, it's my turn to have funky eyes!' and whoosh, you get them. So not fair…" While the boys bantered, Sakura picked up her mirror and looked again just to be sure. It was still the same as before: both eyes were a deep crimson, a single black tomoe in each iris. There was no mistaking it. Somehow, some way, just like Naruto had turned up with Byakugan, she now possessed Sharingan.

"Uh, how do I turn it off?" she asked. Still stunned by the revelation Sasuke couldn't stop himself from hitting the ground again.

"Great, she's turning into Naruto," he mumbled through the dirt.

Three days later the party had reached Konoha, with Kakashi handing out orders to not talk about their eyes until after he'd met with the Hokage; the trio were dismissed after checking in with instructions to get some rest and meet him at their usual place tomorrow at the usual time (which they all knew meant he was going to be three hours late, again), here's some money go have a nice dinner goodbye.

Naruto of course was going to go straight to Ichiraku's. Sasuke followed if only because he was out of his favorite rice balls, and Sakura wandered off to her home to say hello to her mother, eat a light meal and shove Kakashi's money into her little Iriko-chan purse before having a long shower and a longer rest. Ever since the bridge things had just been too weird for her mind to handle.

… … …

Meanwhile Kakashi was in the Hokage's office to deliver his report, only to find that he was not alone. Several other Jounin were present as well and before he could ask what was going on, his mind clicked on what day it was. The Chuunin exams would be announced soon and he happened to get back on the same day as teams were nominated. He got the sense that the rest were waiting on him to make a decision regarding his own team as an example to follow. Well, they were going to be disappointed.

"I have a report to give so let's get this over with, since I apparently got here just in time to have missed Hokage-sama's speech and must now declare my intentions without any prior information. Oh well; I am Kakashi Hatake, representing Team Seven, and I decline to nominate them for the Chuunin Selection Exams." Hushed whispers spread through the gathered jounin, and in the wake of this event Kurenai and Asuma both withdrew their teams as well, though Guy did not and claimed it as a victory against his 'eternal rival', which Kakashi was all too willing to let the man have. For some reason Iruka was present as well, which he supposed was only fair since he knew the genin a lot better than the jounin leading them, for now anyway, and likely his being there was in an advisory role. He looked unusually pleased that Naruto was not being nominated for advancement.

"Would you care to explain your reasoning as to why you are not putting your team forth, Kakashi?"

"In due time, Hokage-sama; the details will be given with my report. The mission was a success, by the way."

"Good to know, though it doesn't account for why you are late returning. I suppose I'll get the story from you soon enough. Now, are there any other nominations? No? Then Iruka, would you be kind enough to hand out the necessary registration forms? The rest of you are dismissed, except for Kakashi." The assembled squad leaders departed in various methods, Kurenai lingering just a moment longer to give Kakashi an inquisitive glance, before vanishing in a spray of sparkles. "Now, I expect you'll have a very good explanation for your words, Kakashi."

"Of course, sir, beginning with the mission being mis-ranked. The client confessed to us on the road after we encountered the Demon Brothers, who, I assume, have been picked up by now. It was my decision, after a little discussion with my team, to continue with the mission. Once we were in Wave, we encountered Zabuza Momochi, one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and what we believed at the time to be a hunter-nin. The skirmish ended in a draw, with both myself and Zabuza too injured to continue…" Kakashi then related the events of the intervening week, the fight on the bridge, and the subsequent awakening of a dormant kekkei genkai in both Naruto and Sasuke. He finished his account with the ambush by Gato and his thugs, the truce called between the missing-nin and the Konoha contingent, the week spent helping finish the bridge and finally the attack on the road back to the hidden village, which concluded with Sakura awakening her own bloodline as a reflex action in response to an assault that should have killed or at least injured her.

Once Kakashi was finished talking, Hiruzen stroked his chin thoughtfully, his stern visage falling heavily on the jounin standing in front of him. He wasn't all that pleased to hear that he waited for them to be placed into a dangerous situation to teach them a skill they should have already possessed, a skill that, all things considered, had been entirely useless in the combat which followed the first encounter. He also got the feeling Kakashi was leaving something out, something important which would cause a latent bloodline to activate in the first place, which by all indications should have manifested much prior to the mission he sent the team on. Perhaps it would have been better if it had appeared at the time of Naruto's sealing, or during the Mizuki incident where he was using phenomenal amounts of chakra. Whatever the real reason was, he'd get to the bottom of it, but in the meantime he had to inform Hiashi and also find a way to keep that pink girl from becoming even more of a fangirl.

Then again maybe having her own Sharingan would get the (civilian) council off of Sasuke's back, though the clans would be demanding the two pair off with outsiders anyway. Hiruzen sighed. He was going to need to look at the family trees for sure.

"I must say, Kakashi, while I understand your reasoning with how you have handled things so far, I am still quite disappointed that you allowed your team to demand a mission for which they were not adequately trained at all. Given that, I am also thankful you have not put them in further danger, volunteering them to test for a rank they are nowhere near ready for yet. The other jounin look to you as an example, you know."

"I wasn't aware of that, sir. I thought they just didn't like making decisions for themselves."

"Be that as it may, I expect you to train Sasuke and Sakura both in the usage of their Sharingan in addition to the training that you should have been giving your team after you passed them. No more of this 'self-motivational' crap and 'teambuilding', understand? Don't fuck this up, Kakashi, or I'll make you swap genin with Gai."

"Very well, sir; teaching Naruto will be easier than before, I suppose. He's still energetic, but ever since he awakened his eyes, he seems to have an easier time of focusing. Just one more thing to worry about, I suppose. If you'll excuse me…" Kakashi departed in a cloud of smoke, making Hiruzen wonder why he allowed the use of Shunshin to leave the office. Kurenai's sparkles, Kakashi's smoke, Asuma's _fire,_ Gai's _EXPLOSION_…thankfully most of the other jounin chose more subdued spectacles to leave behind, such as swirls of leaves and in one case a pile of paperwork. Eyeing the paperwork he had to assume that his secretary had somehow slipped in with the team leaders. That woman just kept getting sneakier. Picking up the stack, lamenting his aging spine in the process, he laid the stack on his desk and pressed the intercom switch.

"Could you send for Hiashi please? I have an important matter to discuss with him."

… … …

An hour later, Hiashi wandered out of the Hokage's office with a distinctly troubled expression on his face. He'd seen the family history, of course, knew the dirty little secrets where the supposedly pure Hyuuga lineage had taken a few sharp turns to play in the mud and bring back something interesting…he'd known it was always a possibility but to have it actually _happen_ was something else. Not much was said about the Founder's Day party among the Hyuuga, at least those old enough to remember it (and they were increasingly few in number), and for the younger members of the clan it was something out of the halls of legend. Hiashi for his part had kept his fingers crossed, hoping that Naruto would go his entire life without latent abilities turning up, but it appeared that he'd needed a little more luck than he'd actually paid for. Schooling his features, the clan head started the journey to the one place he knew that the energetic blond would be at this hour.

He managed to walk right in on an altercation between Naruto, his team, Sarutobi's grandson and a group of Suna genin most likely in the village for the upcoming exams. The situation was defused primarily by Sasuke's posturing, but Iruka's timely arrival didn't hurt matters either, and he suggested in very clear terms that allies or not, try and avoid threatening anyone in the village lest they find themselves _escorted out_ which, the way he phrased it, meant thrown into a cell, and not necessarily in one piece.

Falling into step with the schoolteacher and his companion as they walked the distance to Ichiraku Ramen, he waited for the boys to place their orders, and asked a moment of the chuunin's time.

"Hey, where're you going, Iruka-sensei?"

"Don't worry, Naruto, just enjoy your food. I'll catch up in a minute." He followed Hiashi across the street, sitting at a café table and fixing the Hyuuga elder with an appraising stare. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen his eyes for myself, but I guess what people have been saying is true. So, what can I do for you, sir?"

"Nothing much; I simply thought I would ask the person who knows him best if he thought there was more than just a physical change."

Iruka shrugged and smiled, gesturing over to where Naruto was sat at the Ichiraku's counter, reading a book of all things while slurping ramen and holding a conversation with Konohamaru at the same time. "I wish I could say I've never seen him sit still for that long, but I'd be lying. Ramen is probably the only thing he actually slows down for, though come to think of it ever since he came back he's been less rambunctious than I remember him being. I can actually tell he's listening, now. It hasn't been very long so maybe he's just actually tired for a change and he'll be back to his normal irrepressible self tomorrow."

"If you're looking for a reason why your student seems to be calmer than ever before, I may have an explanation. It is actually not unusual for young Hyuuga who have not yet activated their bloodline to be rather…inattentive, to use a polite word. The extra visual input requires the brain to be structured in a certain manner to process it all and given that Naruto only just recently obtained the Byakugan, as he is not directly descended from the Hyuuga I can only surmise that his mind took longer to arrange into the proper patterns to handle the information. Tell me, have you noticed any instances of him observing details that others missed, or being hyper-aware of his surroundings when under stress?"

"To be honest, yes, I have. I thought he was just being hyperactive at first, but the things he would mention always pertained in some manner to the lessons I was trying to teach, even if only tangentially. He'd seem to remember a little detail that most of them passed over as unimportant, and then relate that to the current topic in ways that once he'd finished talking made perfect sense. I wasn't aware either of his parents were Hyuuga, though."

"They weren't, or at least not directly. This is all very secret and related to clan lineage, so I will have to ask for an oath of silence on the matter." Iruka offered up a solemn promise, and then leaned forward intently. Though neither he nor Hiashi were much for gossiping, an honest-to-heaven secret was too juicy to pass up. "As it stands, during the Founder's Day celebration, the very first, a few people got a little too deeply into their cups—Mito Senju in particular forgetting for a moment that she was already married. I can let you look at the family tree, but you'd have to swear on your balls not to tell anyone."

"So…so basically you're saying that Naruto is the closest thing we have to royalty outside of the Daimyo's court?"

"More or less; this raises problems, though. As if it weren't bad enough that people routinely try to kidnap my children, the emergence of a true branch family will make Naruto a target as well. Of course, from what I heard, people are going to start watching the Haruno family for Sharingan, so maybe they'll ignore him in favor of that instead."

"Wait, wait, you said that Haruno have latent dojutsu as well? But let's forget about that for awhile. What do you mean regular kidnapping attempts? Am I going to have to start watching for infiltrators once I get Hanabi in my class?"

"In all possibility, yes; I've tried to teach my daughters how to be strong so they can protect themselves, but it just doesn't seem to be taking with Hinata. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The harder I push the weaker she gets. She has the potential to be the best fighter in a hundred years of Hyuuga shinobi and for the life of me I can't seem to get her to realize her own abilities."

"Have you tried constructive criticism, or showing pride in her accomplishments? The truth could work wonders, too—I'm not saying aggrandize Hinata's achievements, but you know, it wouldn't kill you to appreciate the efforts she undertakes, either. Besides, if she knows there's a reason for you being so hard on her she might take it more seriously. Lastly, I'd try not to compare her to anybody, either. Strengths aren't always apparent at the beginning, so you have to give her a chance to get used to the ideas you want her to learn. Now come on, I want to get a Naruto Special before he eats me out of my wallet and back pay."

"I'll take your words under advisement; the clan does have traditions and regardless of how foolish they may seem sometimes, they are hard to break." Hiashi stood and after putting some distance between himself and Iruka turned to look at the man again, a frown on his face. "If it works, I will be in your debt."

"The only debt you need worry about is the one you owe your daughter."

… … …

Naruto was stumped, which was not saying much as he was usually in a state of confusion when he wasn't in a state of absolute certainty. Not long after they had come back from their C turned A rank mission, he had been approached by none other than Hinata's father, Hiashi; he remembered the girl from the Academy and from seeing her around town a few times, but had never actually spoken to her, and if her dad was anything to go by she was probably just as stuck-up and pompous. The clan head had shown up at his door with an offer of training, education in how to use his recently-activated dojutsu as well as the Hyuuga clan's family fighting style.

Normally Naruto would have jumped at the chance to learn something exclusive like that, and he had shown up at the time and place indicated…once. Something about Hiashi just rubbed him wrong, from his tone of voice to the way he attacked a rookie genin with the same ferocity as he would a seasoned jounin; Naruto had managed to fend him off but only after pulling some wild moves off the walls of the dojo.

Apparently he wasn't supposed to do that, and as punishment for his actions he had to do one hundred push-ups with a bucket of water balancing on each shoulder, buckets he wasn't allowed to spill a single drop from. To make matters worse, one of the branch members spent the entire time sneering at him, as if he were a stain on the pristine white walls of the training room. At least it wasn't a total waste of time, as he had found Hinata rather easy to talk to, even if she was somewhat shy. Not at all like his initial assessment of her, which, oddly enough, he was glad he was wrong in.

Naruto's dilemma stemmed from the fact that, despite Hiashi's apparent disappointment in his initial performance, he had been invited back for more training sessions, and had even been given a few books on how to "properly utilize his sacred gift". The chakra-sensing abilities of the Byakugan were all well and good but he'd managed twelve years without them and didn't see the point in growing too reliant on the powers gifted by the kekkei genkai…nor did he appreciate that group of old men who insisted he should be "sealed for the good of the clan and the future of the Hyuuga".

Of course, he couldn't let that stand, so he'd burst in on the Elders' chamber, pointing an indignant finger at each of them in turn, chakra radiating off of his body in a visible shroud to emphasize his total disgust with them. "I already have one seal on me," he'd said once he had their undivided attention, "and I am not interested in getting another one. And anyone who _tries_ had better be ready to lose an arm!" Their hard gazes had told Naruto everything he needed to know about what they thought about _that_, and he hadn't been back to the Hyuuga grounds since. It seemed that eavesdropping was considered a grievous offense; if they hadn't wanted him to overhear them, then they shouldn't have been arguing so loud.

Now, Naruto was all for getting extra training (anything that could help on his road to Hokage was more than welcome), but there were some things that he wasn't going to put up with and stuffy old men that thought they knew better just because they'd been doing something a certain way for so long that they'd had time to become wrinkly prunes was one such thing.

Thus, he had a choice to make: continue training with Hiashi and his daughters, and endure the disrespect he was getting from the clan as a whole, or try to work on independent study and improve the skills they wanted him to learn on his own. Today, at least, he had plans to meet Hinata at Training Ground 112, while Kakashi was with Sakura and Sasuke to teach them a few things about _their_ dojutsu, and with Hinata's other team members getting their own clan training, was free to practice with the shy Hyuuga girl. Looking at the clock he saw he had roughly twenty minutes to get there, so he set his worries aside for the time being and puttered through his apartment to get ready.

Twenty minutes later and he was at the training ground indicated, where a tall, dark-haired woman was already waiting; Naruto recognized her, despite the brief interactions throughout his admittedly-short career, as Hinata's teacher, looking the same as she had when she first retrieved her team. Alighting on the ground a respectable distance away from her on the rooftop he approached casually, and greeted her with a warm "Good Morning" which was returned in kind.

"I'm glad you've come early, Uzumaki-san," the jounin said. "In case you don't remember me, I'm Kurenai Yuuhi; Hinata's jounin instructor. I'll be joining you two on today's training to see what your current level is. From what Hiashi-dono tells me, you've only recently awakened your bloodline…and have expressed a rather magnanimous dislike of the Hyuuga's training methods."

"You heard about that, huh?" Naruto said sheepishly. Kurenai nodded, a small smirk twitching her ruby lips out of their neutral alignment for the briefest of moments.

"I would say the whole village heard about it. I understand you may have been upset, but in the future please try to minimize any outward displays of emotion. Some of the older shinobi clans view it as a sign of weakness…regardless of what the truth may be. Anyway, since you're here I'm assuming that you've decided against training with the Hyuuga proper?"

"Why shouldn't I? Aside from Hinata and Hanabi about the only ones worth knowing are the ones with that damn seal on their heads. Can you believe that on my first day there that bozo Hiashi came at me with everything he had? If I hadn't improvised I'd be paste on the floor of their dojo—and then they had the nerve to punish me for being creative!"

"Naruto, the Gentle Fist is an old and venerated method of taijutsu held in high regard by many in the village. You shouldn't be so quick to discount it."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto grumbled. "It's still a stupidly-rigid style meant for fighting in corridors, not open fields." What questions might have been on the tip of Kurenai's tongue were forestalled by the arrival of her favorite student, and also the one with the most hurdles to overcome. Hinata didn't approach with even half the confidence that Naruto had, shuffling across the rooftop field with something akin to trepidation, and as she neared she kept casting furtive glances at Naruto, something he pretended not to notice.

"Good morning, Kurenai-sensei, Naruto-kun," she said softly. Naruto pretended not to hear her, staring at the clouds instead of acknowledging her. He knew he was being unkind, but he wasn't going to get much done if they had to accommodate a shrinking violet the whole time. Noting Naruto's lack of response, Hinata blushed in shame, and began poking her fingers together as she often did when she was flustered or embarrassed. She was about to turn away and leave the field when she felt a pair of hands on her wrists, and looked up, startled, into a pair of sharp blue eyes.

"If you're going to say hello," Naruto said, "then you should do it loudly and confidently. Now, how about we try it again?"

"Um…" Hinata began, staring down at her fingers once more. "I don't really think…"

"Ah, forget thinking! If you think about it you'll worry too much! It's just like cliff-jumping. Take a deep breath and do it!" Nodding, Hinata lifted her head, took a deep breath, just as he told her, and in as loud a voice as she could muster, shouted out her greeting. His proximity to the girl and the surprising volume she was capable of bowled Naruto over, and he lay on his back, laughing gleefully.

"That's more like it, Hinata-chan! I'll make a proud ninja of you yet!" Staring at the supine jinchuuriki in shock, Hinata was about to offer an apology, but paused when she heard his laughter. It was clear and rich, not scornful or pitying, but genuinely impressed and amused.

_Maybe…maybe I can be strong after all,_ the Hyuuga matron-in-training thought. _I can find my own way to be a proud kunoichi._

Training progressed at a decent pace after that, with Naruto agreeing to submit to Kurenai's methods that day. He found it simple but effective and she'd even helped him adjust his basic taijutsu some. They started with training their dojutsu. Kurenai had them first send their vision as far away as they could; focusing not on seeing everything around them, merely on seeing things that ordinarily would require a telescope of rather large caliber. Hinata, he learned, had a range of over three miles, which was impressive even by Hyuuga standards according to the scrolls he'd been given.

Second on the agenda was Jyuuken training, and as before Naruto saw a distinct problem with it. Granted, he hadn't perused the books all that much, but even so…

"Hinata," Naruto said at one point, stopping them in the middle of a spar, "drop into the basic stance and stand at normal sparring length." Flushing, Hinata did as asked, extending her arms in the textbook manner and shifting her feet apart before shuffling out to the normal starting position for a Gentle Fist duel. Naruto did the same, and held the pose for a few moments before relaxing out of it. "Just like I thought, your reach is too short."

"How could you tell? This is the stance that we always take…"

"Tell me something: who usually trains you when you're at home?"

"My father does," Hinata admitted quietly.

"Not one of the female practitioners? Not a kunoichi?" Hinata shook her head no; as the daughter of the clan head she was expected to receive one-on-one training. Truth be told she didn't really like the aggressive style that Hiashi was trying to instill in her, and looking up, she saw a pensive expression on both Naruto's and Kurenai's faces, making her realize she'd said it out loud.

"Well, there are a few things I can see with the style he's trying to teach you. It's made for someone ten years older, a half a meter taller and a handful of kilos heavier—and more importantly he's trying to teach you the men's style of Jyuuken, which aside from not suiting your body doesn't suit your disposition, either. And that's not even beginning to get into the problems with there being no lateral movement or incorporation of low-level techniques. Not that I know any real offensive techniques, but during our last bout I saw twenty different opportunities to take you out had I not been using the textbook style, and I'm not even a genius fighter like Kakashi-sensei or Sasuke."

"What exactly do you mean by that, Naruto?" Kurenai cut in on behalf of her student, noting the dejected look that was starting to form on Hinata's visage. "I've been teaching Hinata the same way in team lessons as she is instructed with her father."

"That's just the thing, though; Hiashi's style works for him because he's a big, tall guy with a solid footing and enormous reach. He also didn't move around much, like he's stuck fighting in a tunnel, even with that big spacious dojo to practice in." Naruto stepped up to Hinata, and whispered in her ear; the girl blushed furiously at his words, but a few more comments had her nodding, and stepping back before stripping off her jacket. He'd been counting on her apparent willingness to do anything for him to get that restrictive coat off of her body, and much to his pleasure, it had worked.

To say that Naruto was impressed with the figure that was revealed would be like saying the sun is only moderately bright. Now, Naruto was not a pervert by any stretch of the imagination (at least, not in the same vein as his mentor and leader), yet as a red-blooded male he still had to appreciate the female figure and in fact had done extensive research and only a tiny bit of peeking in order to create the Ninja Centerfold, and what he saw revealed by Hinata's jacket was nothing short of _**PERFECTION.**_

Bolstered by years of intense physical training and a rich diet, the figure he saw before him, clad in a black tank-top and a short sleeved mesh undershirt beneath that, made Naruto wish he had his own Sharingan eye so he could burn the sight into his memory forever. Because beneath that bulky jacket, Hinata had been hiding a physique most women only dreamed of: blushing, round cheeks, leading into a delicate but prominent jaw, dainty neck and slim shoulders; a pair of pert, round breasts stretching the fabric of her shirt out with two prominent but not yet oversized swells, the drape of her shirt hiding what he knew must be a slender, toned waist; hips wide, bottom firm and peach-shaped, descending into a set of strong thighs and the tape on her calves letting him see every ripple and flex of her muscles—even her feet were perfect, dainty toes hiding what he knew must be a solid footing and an iron-hard kick.

Realizing he was staring at the buxom young woman, Naruto quickly shook himself out of his reverie, and stepped forward again, mindful of the contact of his callused hands against the pristine, blemish-free skin of Hinata's arms. He worked quickly, pulling her out of the rigid Jyuuken stance. When he was finished she was in a modified stance, right hand close to her chest, left arm out but relaxed, bent at the elbow; her feet were not spread as far, the left foot back and turned out, the right leg forward and turned in, effectively turning her lower body ninety degrees to her chest and shoulders.

"I noticed you favored your left side, so…" Naruto said, resuming his original starting position and the 'proper' Jyuuken stance. "Let's concentrate on blocking and deflection this time. I'll attack you and you block me. Your job is to get inside my guard any way you can. Ready?" Hinata nodded and Naruto drew on all of his (admittedly limited) taijutsu knowledge to put her through the wringer.

He started simply at first, using the Gentle Fist forms he'd managed to pick up, smiling as he saw her defending herself almost effortlessly against his attacks; picking up the pace, he fired off a pair of shuriken to mask lightning strikes of fingers aimed at neck and kidneys, only to grin even wider when her left hand snapped out to pluck the shuriken from the air and send them back twice as fast, forcing him to abort his blows early, enabling her to deflect his left hand harmlessly past her cheek and pin his right against her armpit, allowing the girl to leverage herself in and deliver a soft tap to his chest that, had she been using any chakra in her strikes, would have been lethal, or at the very least crippling.

"Good!" he crowed, stepping back and resuming his ready stance. Hinata did the same, panting slightly from the exertion, noting that Naruto didn't even seem winded…then again she'd seen his training methods and knew he had a lot more stamina to work with than the average genin or even the average chuunin, a fact which deflated her somewhat, but she wasn't about to let herself get daunted by that in front of Naruto. No sir.

"Good work, Hinata, but we're not done yet. You've still got more enemies!" With a cross seal, Naruto generated a quartet of shadow clones, each of which took up a fighting stance, none of them using Jyuuken like the original was. "You're surrounded now, what do you do? They're not going to fight fair and you've got no backup!"

Hinata's answer was to lash out with her rear leg, catching the clone behind her in the crotch, causing it to dispel; her maneuver put her in position to duck under the brace of kunai flying at her from the right, plucking one out of the air and using it to block the hammer-stab that would have left a nasty injury on her had it connected. Dropping the kunai to off-balance the clone, Hinata righted herself, Byakugan flaring, a backhand smashing into the copy's jaw and sending it flying just in time for her to circle around Naruto's thrusting fingers—she felt the wind of their passage on the nape of her neck, and she initiated body contact to sweep around and send the attacking genin stumbling. Leaping skyward to avoid the grasping hands attempting to pull her into the dirt, Hinata whipped a set of shuriken out of her pouch without aiming, the wild throw making the two remaining clones duck out of the way or else be hit in disabling spots.

As she landed Hinata had to lift her left leg to stifle an incoming kick, the force of which staggered her and set her off-balance; she was caught by the arm and pushed to the ground, her eyes letting her see the kunai descending for the killing blow. Not willing to accept defeat just yet, she rolled into the arm, weakening its grasp on her, and lashed upwards with her foot as she tumbled forward and back into a stance, feeling the satisfying crunch and hearing the poof of a clone dying. Pulling her sight to a point above her body, Hinata braced herself for the pincer attack she knew was coming, and when it did arrive she was ready for it, a chakra spike killing the clone trying to get her from behind before a chakra-coated palm parried the wooden spool attempting to bean her in the side of the head.

The application of chakra, though, caused the scroll to unwind and unseal its contents, dust of some sort exploding into Hinata's face and allowing the remaining Naruto, the original, to move in and place a kunai against her neck. Blinking through the pain coming from her irritated eyes, Hinata glared at the grinning boy in front of her.

"Any last words before I send you to Shinigami?"

As Naruto was hoping, she didn't waste any time pleading for her 'life,' instead taking advantage of the fact that her opponent was not pinning her from behind, leaning away from the kunai and dropping to sweep his legs out from beneath him. Naruto backflipped away from the attempt, disorienting himself momentarily, and Hinata took that moment to swipe the kunai out of his hand, step behind him, and lock her heel against his own to prevent a reverse takedown, holding the blade against his jugular.

"Any last words before I send _you_ to Shinigami?" Hinata retorted, throwing the taunt in Naruto's face.

"Good work, Hinata," was the reply, but not from Naruto; it was Kurenai who had spoken up, smiling at the two teens that chose that moment to realize just how firmly Hinata's chest was pressed up against the whiskered blond's back. The pair separated with a blush, turning and bowing to each other to signal the end of the spar. "And good work to you, too, Naruto, for helping Hinata improve so quickly with a few simple changes. Though I'm curious as to where you learned the Headhunter technique; I know Kakashi hasn't taught that to you yet."

"Um, well, you see…" Naruto said with a sheepish grin. "I sorta saw him use it on Sasuke once and borrowed a few jutsu scrolls from the library? I gave them back before anyone noticed them missing…"

"Well, as long as you didn't keep the scrolls I suppose they _are_ there for anyone to learn from, though next time you can just check them out with the librarian. I noticed you didn't call the attack like most genin would."

"I've been practicing it a lot, Kurenai-sensei. It doesn't really help to yell out your plans to your opponents, does it?"

"Indeed not, Naruto. Good observation. You're welcome to continue practicing with us, if you like."

"That'd be awesome! Hinata's a pretty good fighter, actually, and pretty, too. I wouldn't mind getting my butt kicked every day if it meant I got to see that smile more." That elicited a shy grin and a heavy blush out of the Hyuuga princess, who started poking her fingers together again, that is until Naruto grasped her hands and shook his head lightly. Nodding, Hinata shoved her hands into her pockets instead, trying to emulate her crush and stand proud and unflinching. That earned her one of the big, exuberant grins from her blond idol, one which she returned if not as broadly then just as eagerly.

"Well, that ends today's lessons, I suppose," Kurenai said after a few moments. "Why don't I take the two of you out to eat before you head home? I'm sure the both of you are rather famished after all of that." Naruto's whoops and hollers had even Kurenai grinning, though she was more bemused than anything. Together the trio set off, while in the space they had just left, a jounin and a clan head released the genjutsu they'd been hiding behind to observe the departing ninja.

"Rather surprising how effective a teacher he is," Hiashi commented, face pulled into a pensive frown. Beside him, Kakashi looked as unfazed as normal, though one could see from the way he held himself that he shared a similar emotion to the leader of the Hyuuga. "That boy managing to figure all that out after only a single training session with the Jyuuken, and even discovering flaws that I myself had overlooked—it's quite humbling."

"He is the number one surprising ninja for a reason, you know. If I hadn't declined to send my team to the Exams I'm sure we would have been seeing even more of that."

"Ah, yes, you have two shinobi to instruct in the way of the Sharingan now, instead of just one, don't you? Their education is coming well?"

"You want my honest opinion? I'd probably have better luck with first-year candidates. Sasuke's fallen into this mindset of expecting everything to come easy, without effort, and Sakura's so out of shape I find myself wondering why I allowed them to take D-ranks, let alone a misclassified A-rank. I have the both of them working on their speed and reflexes for now. I've made a lot of mistakes with them; fortunately I seem to have been granted a second chance. I hope the other jounin with rookie teams are taking the opportunity to review their teams' training regimens, as well."

"A sound and sensible agenda," Hiashi commented after pondering Kakashi's words. "Hopefully he will be able to encourage her in more ways than one. I fear that too many more poor showings in her spars against fellow clan members will sour the Elders' opinion of Hinata beyond all recovery."

"They have that much say in your clan?"

"Think of how numerous the Hyuuga are, Kakashi. Though day-to-day matters fall to the discretion of the various family heads, I am head for the entire clan, and the problems that may arise between families and individuals are more plentiful than I am capable of dealing with alone. I do not fear her being branded—clan law prohibits that—but I do fear her being disinherited completely. One other thing bothers me, however, or should I say two things."

"Enlighten me, O Hiashi-dono." The sarcasm in the statement rankled the Hyuuga head somewhat, but he ignored his annoyance and pressed on.

"It concerns a bit of legislation that the Clan Council is trying to get the Jounin Council to ratify and present to the Hokage to be signed into law. With many of our more prominent shinobi-oriented clans on the decline they want to make it a requirement that those clans, families really, with fewer than twenty members be given special exemptions from certain customs and unofficial laws…those pertaining to marriage especially. I know for a fact that Asuma would object to being _ordered_ to find more than one woman to love, especially as he's been skirting the issue of a certain Genjutsu Mistress lately. The Kurama clan, too, would be in objection as their particular abilities are rather unstable and having too many of them around at any one time would be a disaster waiting to happen…and good luck getting Tsunade back here for anything less than a promotion to Hokage."

"I've heard about that piece of work. Anko was complaining about it over at the Holy Carp recently. What's your other concern and is it related?"

"Did you notice how Naruto's expression changed when he succeeded in getting my daughter to discard her jacket for the training session? He's beginning to notice women, Kakashi, and has been for quite some time if Iruka's report on a unique usage of _henge_ is any indication."

"Ah, I think I understand. You worry for Hinata's virtue, is that it?"

"What father would not? Even as the parent to a fledgling kunoichi and another daughter with similar aspirations, I cannot help but feel somewhat protective of them both."

"Naruto is a good boy. He wouldn't take advantage of her."

"If this legislation does pass… there are so many 'ifs' and 'maybes' in recent times, Kakashi. I don't know how to make sense of it all."

"Should you figure it out let me know. I'd like to have a head-start on the fangirls."

… … …

_Originally, this was going to be a lot longer than what I have written so far, but the idea, as you can see, fizzled out halfway. Maybe because it's yet another "Naruto gets a doujutsu) fiction. I dunno._

_Since the Rookie Nine aren't entered into the Exams that means that Sasuke, naturally, does not receive the curse mark and thus stays in Konoha; other changes include it being Neji who is matched up against Gaara in the preliminaries rather than Lee, and Tenten loses to Kin rather than Temari, though it takes a lot longer and is less humiliating for her._

_Naturally Naruto will still learn summoning, though with his newfound focus he's able to master it much more quickly and pick up a few other tricks to use against Gaara when the invasion is launched, while Sasuke and Sakura both are given the ability to use the Chidori (after an extensive amount of speed training to bring them both up to the level where they can actually aim it). With no curse mark fueling his jealousy Sasuke stays in the village…_

_Other things that were to have happened was Naruto taking Hinata under his Clan's protection citing a few obscure laws and the fact that the Hokage's law always supersedes Clan law, although the reasons for this were never thought out beyond the need to do so in the first place. Perhaps it was triggered by Neji's loss to Gaara and the debilitating injuries that are carried with it, or perhaps it is required by some event occurring during the Invasion. Who knows?_

_And no, the CRA still doesn't get passed into legality._

_Sorry about the sudden shift into serious when it looked like it was developing into a romantic comedy. Not keeping track of what you want to have happen does that to stories.  
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_If anyone wants to adopt this fic then go ahead, with some stipulations:_

_No CRA. It's silly._

_No Hinata/Naruto pairing, unless it's of a platonic, brother/sister nature._

_The Byakugan and Sharingan that Naruto and Sakura possess are not magically more powerful than the main wielders of the eye mutations. So none of this silly 'Naruto being able to see souls' stuff or anything involving Sakura becoming able to emulate Sakon and Ukon just because she's got some kind of godly chakra control. That's silly._

_NO SUPER-GENIN. THEY'RE ROOKIES FOR A REASON._

_Other than that have fun and don't die. Adopters encouraged to note me with their version of the story._

_I might pick it up again later. I don't have a clue._


	5. For Which I Stand

For Which I Stand

They wanted him to join ANBU. It was ridiculous. He'd only just been promoted to Chuunin a week ago and they were already pushing him to join Black Ops. Just like they'd pushed him to join the Academy two years early, and how they'd pushed for him to be apprenticed to a jounin rather than be on a genin team. It…annoyed him. The elders were always pressing him into duty, for the good of the clan, chomping at an imaginary bit, tugging at reins that didn't exist. They didn't understand, and one of these days it was going to come back to bite them in the ass. He never got to spend any time at home, and his parents were always treading on eggshells around him. Hell, even his brother was a victim of their games.

He stood before the Hokage and the leader of ANBU, a man in a dog mask, his shaggy hair poking up from beneath the broad band holding the wooden mask in place. Listening half-heartedly to the platitudes being laid at his feet, the praise at achieving Chuunin rank at such a young age, he fought the urge to pinch his nose. Without fail, the magic word 'duty' was spoken and his mind flashed back to the elders telling him it was his 'duty' to bring honor to the clan, his 'responsibility' to uphold the unfairly high standards that the family was being held to. There were very few things in his life that he hated; his clan's elders were campaigning to be added to that list.

It was more than he could stand, and as he pretended to listen to the commendations, he thought of the words that had been spoken to him by an enemy, a man who had been uncannily good at reading him despite the forced stoicism.

"_I've seen that look dozens of times, kid. That's the sort of look that stays with you, the eyes of someone who hates fighting. You can't always avoid it, though. You can't always say 'let's sit down and talk about this'; sometimes you've got to man up and kick some ass, whether you want to or not. To tell you the truth, I don't much like fighting either. But you know what? I'm not going to just let people push me around and walk all over me, either. I'd rather avoid confrontation if I can; even so, I'm not going to lie down and accept it, either."_

They'd fought after that, of course, since they were enemies, on different sides of the same assignment, and in the end he'd come out on top while his opponent lay dead; all the same the words stuck with him, troubling though they might be. He noticed that the Hokage and the ANBU commander were looking at him, waiting for a response to a question he hadn't heard.

"I refuse," he said calmly. At this, the Sandaime looked quite perplexed, and at the same time relieved.

"You refuse?" the commander asked.

"It's within my rights, isn't it? I understand that it is a great honor to be selected for service, to become a member of the Hokage's right arm. I understand also that I'm not even a teenager yet and more than that I dislike fighting to the point where I'd rather incur the wrath of my clan than to place myself in a position to cause more conflict and take more lives. Therefore, I thank you for your consideration, and regretfully inform you that I will not be accepting appointment to ANBU now or at any point in the future. If there is nothing else, ANBU-san, Hokage-sama, I will be on my way."

_Can you guess who this is?_

_There was a story here but it didn't quite take off. Free to use, since I'm not complaining about me not writing except to my friends._


End file.
